ARICLE REVIEW

Introduction
The article The Role of Service Marketing Mix and Its Impact on Marketing Audit in Engineering and
Technical Service Corporations is written by Mehrdad Alipour and Elham Darbi. The article was published in
the Global Journal of Management and Business Research, Volume 11, Issue 6, Version1.0, May 2011. The
article talks about the service marketing mix as 7PS and its application and effects on marketing audit in
various engineering and technical service corporations.
The concept of marketing mix for the first time (as given in the particular article) was given in an article at
Business Review Harward by Neil Borden and the article was titled Marketing Mix Conceptions. According to
him the marketing mix or mixed marketing was determining how product, distribution (place), price and
promotion were mixed together and the regulation and application of this marketing mix is called as marketing
mix
Later, due to challenges encountered by the service marketer like heterogeneity the requirements of
customers, interaction with customers while delivering service and perishability or absence of inventory,
intangibility of offer and absence of patent protection, etc necessitate the extension of the marketing mix to
include people, process and physical evidence. The additional prescribed Ps refer to the activities that are
essential to meet the challenges posed by three unique characteristics of services:
1. Simultaneity or inseparability of service provider from customer ( Participants/People)
2. The inability to hold inventory of service making it critical for service process to flow smoothly to
match demand and supply (Process)
3. The need to make highly intangible service offering appear tangible (Physical Evidence)
Thus, the service marketing mix comprises of the following seven variables

Product
Price
Promotion
Place
People
Process
Physical Evidence

Expanded Marketing Mix for Services

Physical
Evidence
Flow
of Facility
activities
Design
Number of
Aesthetics
stepsand
simple/
functionality
complex
Level
of
Ambient
customer
conditions
involvement
Equipment
and Signage

Product

Place

Promotion

Price

People

Physical
attributees

Channel type

Promotion
blend

Flexibility

Employee
Research

Quality
level

Outlet location

Sales people Price level

Training

Product
lines

Intermediaries

Advertising

Terms

Motivation

Branding

Segmentation

Sales
promotion

Differentiation

Rewards

Positioning

Franchising

Publicity

Discounts

Teamwork

Statements

New
services

Managing
channels

Direct
marketing

Allowances

Communicating
values
and
culture

Employee
uniform and
appearance
Guarantees
and Business
Cards
Corporate
identity and
image

Motivating
channel
members

Process

As given in the article a Marketing Manager must ensure that there exist significant and effective correlation
and efficient performance of these seven elements as it helps influencing and retaining customers, establishing a
better distribution system, adequate communication ways, getting a competitive edge over competitors and
achieving organizational goals and objectives. Whereas any disharmony can hinder an organizations
performance, its capability to achieve goals, losing customers, dissatisfaction among employees and wastage of
money, time and efforts. Service department plays an important role by improving productivity, creating
occupational opportunities and earning income but faces marketing problems. It is believed that more complex,
specialized and competitive activities are, the more improved servicing. Sane holds for technical and
engineering service organizations where managers who are familiar with service marketing can manage their
organizations in a much better way in this active and competitive world and apply service technology to satisfy
customers.

Findings and Discussion

The article highlights various steps to be taken into consideration while role of service marketing in engineering
and technical companies which are as follows

Marketing steps for consultants

Instead of wasting their time on lost customers, managers or business, a technical and engineering service
firm should focus on new plans and procedures that are easy to comprehend, understand, complete and are
countable. For this a firm has to undergo three steps which are
Recognizing situation Considering a firm externally as well as externally in regard to attracting and
retaining customers and handling their issues through help of a marketing plan which staes a forms
values, plans and future prospects
Making a data base from potential customers This step involves three key activities which are
Analyzing the information
Preparing a marketing plan
Recognizing and looking for customers
Calling potential customers Under this step the firm aims to call their potential customers and persuade
them to utilize their services and also establish customer loyalty. This stage is part of sale executive
stage

Defining Services

As defined by Kotler and Armstrong , A service is an activity or benefit that one party can offer to another
that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Its production ma or may not
by tied to a physical product.

Classification of Services
Types of Services based on trade global division
o Business

o Finance

o Communication

o Health

o Construction and Engineering

o Tourism and Travel

o Distribution

o Leisure, Cultural, Sporting

o Education

o Transport

o Environment

o Others

o
Technical services based on global trade classification
o
o General Construction task on Housing
o General Construction task in Civil Engineering
o Installing and Mounting Tasks
o Building Accomplishment and Complement
o Others

o
Types of Engineering service companies
o
o Urban Planning and
Architecture
o Transportation
o Water Engineering
o Agriculture Studies
o Energy
o Telecommunications
o Technology

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Mining
Oil and Gas
Cultural Heritage
Statistics
Management Service
Planning Service
Shared Expertise

o
o
Service Marketing Development
o

Factors Influencing Service Marketing Development

ORS eu r grl ev a si nc aie s n a i dn t id oR u ne s g St ru t y rl a u G t c i rot u n w r s e t h a n d S

o
Main Functions of Service Agencies in marketing
o
1. Competitive Differentiation based on equality, the providing way and customer beliefs to
eliminate price factor.
2. Service Quality should be improved in order to gain competitive advantage over other players in
the market
3. Productivity enhancement to overcome increasing expanses.
o The article then talks about Service Quality and its importance in service marketing mix.
According to the writers of this article, a marketing manager should ensure that quality of
service should be determined based on wants, needs, desires and demand of customers
and their purchasing power. Along with the needs and demand of customers, good
quality, suitable and proper situation, reasonable price, new promotion strategies, etc
should also be considered while familiarizing customers with service level by using
various tools and media for service marketing. Next, the article brings to light the five
distance model responsible for an unsuccessful service as given by Amol Zit Vabry

The management does not understand customers demands causing distance between management
attitude and customers expectations

Distance between the management attitude and technical features of service quality
Distance between technical features and delivery ways that may exist due to uneducated and uninformed
service delivery staff
Distance between service delivery and foreign relationships due to lack of advertisement
When customers are unable to identify the service quality value there exist a distance between attitude
towards service and expected service
o The article also talks about Marketing Audit which is a comprehensive, systematic,
independent, critical, neutral and periodic examination of a companys marketing
environment, strategies, activities and objectives with an aim to determine problem areas,
opportunities, threats and thereby determining a plan of action to improve marketing of a
company. It is a type of marketing strategic control measure. It helps to identify
opportunities and threats in an industry and strengths and weaknesses of an organization.
It is important to conduct a marketing audit as it helps in determining the problem and
issues, identify opportunities and threats, preparing plan of action and in assessment and
control process.
o The article then talks about the different characteristics, elements and process of a
marketing audit which are follows
o Characterstics :

Generality -The aim for marketing audit is to cover and organization's fundamental activities
Systematic - A periodic revision of environment, goals and strategies is done as a part of marketing audit
to ensure effects of these factors on an organizations marketing
Independ A marketing audit can be through self assessment, audit in width, top down audit, auditing
by auditing organization unit and through external auditing
Periodic A regular audit is required to keep a firm safe and successful.
o Elements

Environment marketing audit analyses inter and external, macro and micro environment
Marketing strategy audit evaluating a firms marketing strategy stability in light of environment
opportunities and threats
Organization marketing audit evaluating interaction between different departments of an organization
Marketing system audit recognizes a way to look for information, planning and marketing operations
control
Usage audit determining profits and costs based on available information
Marketing operation audit
o Process

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o Research Conducted
o TYPE Descriptive Survey for collection of data in hypothetical test
o AIM To determine role of service marketing mix functions and its impact on marketing
( esp. in Technical and Engineering Service Consulting Services)
o QUESTIONS ASKED
1. Do the 7Ps have any effects on marketing audits conducted in engineering and technical service
consulting firms?
2. Do the 7Ps have same effect on engineering and technical service consulting firms of car production ?
o TOOLS USED
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Descriptive indicators Mean and Deviation

1. The independent variants had direct linear relation with dependent variable
2. Product variant had the most and place variant had the least correlation with the dependent variable

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3. ANOVA table showed a meaningful and effective independent variants for dependent variant
4. The regression model determined was a multi variant model o show relation between dependent and
independent variants y = 1.501 + 0.280*(Product) + 0.176*(Physical Assets) + 0.128*(People)
5. According to Friedman test following ranks were recorded and it showed that all the seven variables did
not have same importance. The ranks are as follows
1. Product
2. People
3. Physical Asset
4. Price
5. Process
6. Promotion
7. Place
o

o Conclusion
o According to me, service marketing mix play an important role while conducting a
marketing audit in all the organizations including engineering and technical service
corporations. Taking into consideration the 7Ps which conducting a marketing audit
helps to reintroduce the organization with all its products and services, reminds a firms of
its initial campaigns and goals to be achieved, allow the organizations to see what all
practices, plan, promotion strategies, policies, etc have worked or failed, helps in
discover all problems, inefficiencies and issues which were not identifies by the
organization, helps in developing fresh campaigns and strategies, etc. Also according to
me all the seven variables product, place, price, promotion, people, physical evidence
and process have a positive impact on conducting a successful marketing audit which in
turn makes it more reliable and can be used in all the service organizations. If the 7Ps are
not recognized while conducting an audit then it will lead to an inadequate and
misleading audit, Poor communication between departments, reduces efficiency and stops
a firm to achieve its goals.
o Therefore Importance of Service Marketing Mix must be recognized while
conducting an Organizations Marketing Audit .
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