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Despite 40 years of research by many social science disciplines, the conduct of planning in the business firm is not well modelled or understood. For marketers, this presents a particularly important problem. Marketing planning is particularly susceptible to the heirarchical nature of the planning process and the need to develop both deliberate and emergent plans. Since marketers provide the interface between the firm and its markets and customers, they must provide the essential strategic and tactical planning direction to the firm's overall strategic planning process. Marketing planning has a strategic and tactical component. Marketers must be precise with their use of terminology, being careful to identify exactly what they mean when they use the terms planning, marketing and strategy.

This viewpoint, based on research undertaken by Forrester Research, aims to assess the impact of technological change on consumer behaviour, especially media habits, and the implication this holds for marketing planners. Currently, it is believed that marketing planners are out of step with new customer behaviours growing out of the changing consumer technological environment. Left Brain Marketing Planning emphasises the need, opportunity and the means by which planners can adopt more analytical procedures to improve marketing planning by greater use of data‐driven approaches that permit the selection and allocation of marketing resources based on an holistic picture of customers across all points in the buying process.

A two stage approach adopted by Forrester Research. First, a marketing allocation tool was devised using Forrester's Consumer Technographics^® data to understand how consumers interact with 13 media. These were used to index each medium against four marketer inputs: business goals, target audience, product type, and targeting approach. Second, interviews were conducted with marketers and agencies to understand current marketing planning processes and best practices and their response to the marketing allocation tool. Interviews were also held with marketing planning experts for additional perspectives around how they anticipate marketing planning will change over the next five years.

Principally, current marketing planning processes are based on traditional approaches that take too little account of the new realities brought about by technological change. The media selected in the marketing planning process do not reflect the media habits of today's consumers. New technology has changed customer behaviour and new technology holds the means by which this can be monitored and evaluated to assess the effectiveness of marketing plans as they are implemented. Changes need to be made, and the means are at hand to achieve such changes, that allow more analytical approaches to marketing planning in understanding what is happening in today's marketplaces and not just an emphasis on marketing metrics for the purpose of meeting internal financial imperatives.

There is much debate about the dynamics in marketing planning between creative approaches and a greater emphasis on marketing metrics to ensure greater marketing accountability. This paper highlights the importance of analytical approaches that do not, of themselves, limit creativity. While encouraging the use of measurement and analytical tools, the paper emphasises the need to use these throughout the planning process and exploit the facilities enabled by new technology to assist in the process of better understanding consumers and communications and buying processes.

The exponents of marketing planning have for over a decade warned of the internal operational, cultural and process impediments to the effective implementation of marketing plans. Recently, they have been joined by the market segmentation specialists and many of the “gurus” of modern marketing management. Unfortunately, the syllabi of most business school marketing courses and the content of their recommended textbooks fail to reflect this concern for implementation issues. Marketers must provide the necessary internal operational and resource requisites for effective marketing planning, utilise suitable processes for undertaking these activities, and manage the on‐going implementation of the recommended marketing plans.

There has been rapid political, social and economic change in South Africa since 1990. As a result of the fall of apartheid, South Africa is slowly taking its place in the global village. Foreign companies are considering South Africa as a good market for their goods and as a source of supply of raw material and partly processed goods. Aims to review the marketing planning practices of large South African companies. A comprehensive review of the marketing planning literature has been undertaken. A study of 73 companies quoted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was undertaken. It was established that all these companies had a comprehensive annual marketing plan and they followed the procedures, and used the techniques described in the normative marketing literature. Global organizations looking for South African partners will find the level of marketing planning sophistication highly satisfactory.

Numerous studies have made it clear that many businesses, both in Australia and overseas, have not yet adopted a marketing plan as a basic operational tool. A mail study was conducted to survey the use of marketing plans in different types of Australian companies. Analysis of the survey results indicated that: (1) the prime responsibility for preparing and approving marketing plans varies between company type, (2) the time period of marketing plans varies between company type, (3) companies with high sales turnovers tend to incorporate a longer time horizon into their marketing plan, (4) no relationship was found between awareness and usage levels of planning tools and company type, and (5) companies with high sales turnovers have an average level of awareness and use of planning tools. Recommendations are made based on these findings.

The marketing planning process is reviewed in two separate works. The first treats it as a “composite” model, comprehensively handled at both the strategic and the operational planning levels of management. The second emphasises the current lack of follow‐through by implementation of marketing strategies and plans and the consequent schism existing between researchers and practitioners.

Throughout the 1960s the marketing concept was a dominant guideline that became a pervasive force within the entire organization. Strategic planning, with its emphasis on the formulation of the business mission, the identification of strategic alternatives, and contingency planning, became the direction of the 1970s. Therefore, it is surprising to find, after all this emphasis on the identification and satisfaction of customer needs and the necessity for planning and strategy, that few organizations have found a way to link future planning with marketing planning and strategy. Futuristics is the science or art of anticipating and planning for the future. In most firms, strategy is still developed for less than a threeyear period. There are only a small number of companies that have been able to link planning with the development of strategy in a time frame of more than five years. These firms have come to realize that: Business decisions have grown more complex as a result of a changing marketing environment, The only way to ensure profitability and survival is to provide an organizational structure that can develop long‐range planning.

Examines a programme of research into marketing planning in UK manufacturing companies containing results of the first stage of fieldwork. Aims to get an initial and broad understanding of the approach that firms take in the planning of their marketing function. Investigates questions and issues in the second stage of the research, which will be reported at a later date. Reports results of this first stage which, it is reported, are considered to be a useful contribution to marketing planning. States that results are reported in five sections and presents these. Uses a postal questionnaire from summer 1980, of which 80 firms sent a response, giving the structure using a table to show this. Classifies respondents by size using the criteria of both sales turnover and number of employees. Further, the sample was classified by the job function of the employee in the company who completed the questionnaire.

Marketing planning and the annual budget are two procedures that organizations engage in. Although controlled by the marketing department and the finance department respectively, the marketing plan and annual budget are interlinked in many ways. Investigates the importance of this interrelationship. Reports on the results of a study of 41 fast moving consumer goods companies following a literature review of budgeting and marketing planning. The results show that there is a high degree of interaction between the marketing and finance departments. They also show that most companies tended to do the marketing plan and annual budget together. In addition, the sales forecast, although controlled by the marketing department, is set to meet financial targets.

Existing literature shows that marketing capabilities of new ventures are critical success factors affecting venture capital funding, startup performance and business failure. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether venture capitalists reward extensive marketing strategies in their startup valuation and whether the marketing mix planning and early strategies on customer orientation predict long-term development of startups.

To address these gaps, this study investigate 107 business plans of new ventures which received venture capital based on these planning documents. The authors use computer-aided text analysis and regression analyses.

This study’s findings show that customer orientation has positive effects on new venture performance and intensive marketing mix planning increases the likelihood of survival. However, venture capitalists decrease their startup valuation when they read too much about customer orientation and operative marketing mix planning.

This study relies on unique internal documents and therefore provides valuable and new insights for research and practice. Further, this study investigate various short- and long-term effects from marketing and customer orientation for a startups’ development.