Sustainable Marketing: Its Importance In Business (70 Characters)

The goal of case analysis is to allow you to consolidate what you have learned in the class and from the book chapters and to apply the knowledge in a written analysis of a real world case. This is an individual assessment. For this assessment you should focus on the core issues underlying the case and illustrate the analysis with appropriate and relevant arguments, logic and theoretical frameworks to demonstrate your mastery and knowledge of the case subject matter and alignment with the chapter topics. Background research, analysing the case based on unit relevant topics, models and frameworks as well as strong arguments backed up by credible and relevant data and facts will be crucial in achieving a good mark. In constructing the case analysis, a report format is preferably advised over an essay format.

Important Note: You must cite at least five (5) relevant peer reviewed journal articles (absolute minimum requirement). You can cite other academic references such as books, conference papers, and book chapters but these will NOT be counted as part of the 5 journal articles. All of these academic references should be cited within the text of the paper; your reference list must match your citations.

Introduction to Sustainable Marketing and Sustainable Community Development

The sustainable marketing is a part of the much broader field called the sustainable community development. It is a kind of development where the present requirements are fulfilled without affecting the capability of the next generations to fulfill their needs. In simple words, sustainable development is the process of managing the productivity by not wasting the social, political, ecological and environmental resources, rather it works by replacing it with greater resource value (Mckenzie?Mohr,2000). Hence, from this point of view, sustainable marketing is a subsection of sustainable development at the social and economic levels. This report deals with the case of Kerry Sanderson, AO, famous for her marketing a lifetime service to business and government. The report further highlights how Kerry dealt with the dilemmas in the due course of her marketing in Fremantle Port.

Kerry Sanderson, AO, is one of the most successful marketers or the public sector career professionals in Western Australia. She has served the private sectors as well as the public sectors of Australia for long 40 years and had been confirmed as the 32^nd Governor of Western Australia in the year 2014 (Cew.org, 2018). She has stayed at the Treasury department for long 17 years and 21 years at the Transport department. In the late 1991, Kerry became the CEO of Fremantle Ports which was a truly high profile for her. She is the sustainable marketer who believed in solving the present problems by not affecting the availability of natural resources in future years (Cew.org, 2018). She was the one who believed in uprooting the problems by her own unique sustainable marketing strategies.

Sustainable marketing is a huge subject having three basic principles: These are – Waste reduction and social engagement, bartering versus purchasing and longevity. The type of business or enterprise that is being marketed decides in what form the waste will come. The elimination of the waste materials such as wrappers, packages can be taken as examples of waste reduction (Mitchell, Wooliscroft & Higham, 2016). Using biodegradable wrappers and website linkage optimization is a way to social engagement by involving into some eco-friendly operations. The bartering versus purchasing principle is applied when social networking is utilized for partnering and cross promotion by finding similar minded people across the globe. The long term marketing efforts save the organization from long term instabilities or fluxes. Long term marketing plan brings in longer social engagements and long term returns (Mitchell, Wooliscroft & Higham, 2016). The concept of sustainable marketing tends to build better and stronger relationships with the customers via better pricing services of goods and superior efficiency with which the wastes are reduced.  Strong social relationships, cooperative partnership and other business lending reliability and correct pricing reflect the long term orientation, enhancement and protection (Mitchell, Wooliscroft & Higham, 2016).

Case Study of Kerry Sanderson and Fremantle Ports

In the growing development of technology and international business, different marketing strategies are developed by the companies to find new ways of marketing their product. All of this is done mainly to give tough competition to the competitors and gain a competitive advantage. In the race of gaining profit and reach the top position, firms usually forget about the social and environmental responsibilities (Kotler,2016). It is quite obvious that they only focus on the product sells and marketing in order to advance the company performance. However, there are still few companies which advocate and implement social sensitivity in their business behavior. They understand the need for sustainable marketing. In order to live in a better and enriched future, the companies should plan for a sustainable future by analyzing the impact of society and environment on the marketing strategies. The impact of suppliers, customers and stakeholders should also be re- evaluated to understand their impact on the marketing strategies.

In political respect, there are many countries which need special push from the back to promote green labeling schemes and recycling of products for a ‘green’ tomorrow (Peattie & Crane,2005). However, few companies from few progressive countries show sensitivity towards recycling their products. For instance, electronic companies like Philips are introducing eco-friendly factors into their products (philips.com, 2018). Agencies like ISO14062 has clearly highlighted the introduction and application of environmental factors into product manufacture(philips.com, 2018). The adaptation of the concept of sustainable marketing brings in basic changes in the company behaviors and operations, promotes responsible reactions from the government, stakeholders and customers of the organization. The organization concentrates more on the innovation, upsurge of production and consumption, but puts less focus on diminishing natural resources.

There are five basic principles of sustainable marketing. These are consumer oriented marketing, customer value marketing, innovative marketing, mission marketing and societal marketing. The tech giant Apple never stays back from engaging in sustainable marketing.  The company has decided to protect 320,000 acres of forests to counterbalance its packaging footprint (apple.com ,2018). The amount of working forest that the company responsibly saves, double compensates the loss of trees wasted in the packaging process of Apple. The forestry strategy introduced by Apple can be considered to be one innovative step from the part of the company towards sustainable marketing promoting sustainable development(apple.com ,2018). This is a kind of circular economy which gives value to the natural resources and will take the world towards a better tomorrow.

Basic Principles of Sustainable Marketing

In the case of Kerry Sanderson, it can be seen that she is a well reputed marketer who has worked in many public and private sectors earning high values and variety of experiences.  The experiences have made her more apt at handling the subsequent problems within the organizations (Cew.org, 2018). It is apparent that after being appointed as the CEO of Fremantle Ports, she heard many business and government executives suggesting that she has taken up a poisoned challis because at that time Fremantle Ports was suffering from a financial loss of AU$ 70 million in the previous year (Fremantleports.com, 2018). The company faces a really hard time because the staff morale was low and the container ability was also equally low. However, Kerry Sanderson handled the long-standing problems with a cooperative approach. The problem with Fremantle Ports as pointed out by Kerry herself was that, the company although had a truly dedicated workforce, it was mostly frustrated(Fremantleports.com, 2018). There were structural process reasons which she was to fix. She knew that her financial and workforce organization experience that she has been collecting through the past years in different companies would be useful in handling the case of Fremantle but she was a little bewildered about the teamwork and staff commitment. In order to receive long term commitment from the staffs, she was also supposed to engage in a long term commitment. Transforming the thought process of the mass, change in processes and modification in team approach were not enough in this case. She was also thinking of using a total quality framework or the Australian Business Excellence Framework to mend the gaps of inefficiency and introduce new processes in the plan (Gordon, Carrigan & Hastings,2013).

What she did that worked as a masterstroke for the Fremantle Ports company is really surprising.  The company has two spatially separated container terminals which were internally inefficient and hindered the operations of the firm. The terminals were strategically consolidated into one single berth line and the shape and size of the terminals were increased (Fremantleports.com, 2018). She brought about drastic change in the efficiency of the terminals by making these little changes. A remarkable change was also made in the waterfront reform which also contributed to the efficiency enhancement of the terminals and containers. previously, the containers could handle only 12 % but after the changes were made, they started handling 20% at a stretch (Fremantleports.com, 2018). After some times the company handled bulk business in the outer harbor from BHP. According to her own words the company never looked back. In fact, it received Gold award in the year 2007 for excellent Business framework in Australia (Fremantleports.com, 2018). The company today has reached up to a world standard capacity in terms of crane rates and the scale of operations.

Hence, it can be seen from the case of Fremantle Ports, how with the unique strategy of Kerry Sanderson, the problems of the government owned trading enterprise were handled without letting the environment, the amenity and the prosperity suffer. Such kind of smooth management is only possible if a proper plan is there. Australia ‘s most inefficient port was turned into the fastest port of the region. It was an innovative e step to promote sustainable development of the organization and the country as well.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that sustainable marketing is important in the highly developing and profit oriented world of business. Organizations in their race of gaining competitive advantage over their competitors, forget about the environmental and social value they have been trampling on their way. However, there are marketers like Kerry Sanderson who displays special sensitivity towards environment and society and applies sustainable marketing strategies to solve organizational problems.

Reference

apple.com. (2018). Apple (Australia). Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/au/

Cew.org. (2018). Kerry Sanderson AO | Chief Executive Women. Retrieved from https://cew.org.au/members/kerry-sanderson/

Fremantleports.com. (2018). Fremantle Ports Home - Welcome Page. Retrieved from https://www.fremantleports.com.au/

Gordon, R., Carrigan, M., & Hastings, G. (2013). A framework for sustainable marketing. Marketing theory, 11(2), 143-163.

Kotler, P. (2016). Reinventing marketing to manage the environmental imperative. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 132-135.

Mckenzie?Mohr, D. (2013). New ways to promote proenvironmental behavior: Promoting sustainable behavior: An introduction to community?based social marketing. Journal of social issues, 56(3), 543-554.

Mitchell, R. W., Wooliscroft, B., & Higham, J. (2016). Sustainable market orientation: A new approach to managing marketing strategy. Journal of Macromarketing, 30(2), 160-170.

Peattie, K., & Crane, A. (2015). Green marketing: legend, myth, farce or prophesy?. Qualitative market research: an international journal, 8(4), 357-370.

philips.com. (2018). Philips - Australia. Retrieved from https://www.philips.com.au/