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Dr Nigel Piercy wrote earlier in RDM about the trend towards the formal organisation of marketing in retail firms, and is actively involved in research on this topic. In this article he restates the case for formalising marketing in retail firms and formulates an agenda for retail management to consider, which provides a framework for analysis and action.

Suggests that one of the most critical problems faced in achieving the implementation of market strategies is building consensus among managers and technical specialists that change in strategy is needed, to respond to change in the outside marketplace. Observes that without the belief of key players in the need for strategic change, attempts to implement new strategies are likely to be ineffective. However, building this consensus is not likely to be achieved by management direction alone. We face the barrier of corporate culture acting as “the way we see things here”. Demonstrates a structured approach to building real market understanding among key players and line managers as a precursor to developing and implementing new market strategies, which has been used with a large number of companies. It is not a perfect answer, but the approach has proved useful in helping to break free of the inertia of the status quo in managers’ minds. The technique also has some notable implications for the role of the marketing planner and analyst ‐ a move from “teller” and reactive information provider, to manager of the continual process of building market understanding.

Innovation is central to modern competition and yet many executives are wary of the risks of cannibalisation of their existing product and service sales through inappropriate innovation. However, the impact of discontinuous technological change is fundamental, and the risks to established companies from not innovating to compete with disruptive technologies are substantial. Many of the arguments which tended towards avoiding cannibalisation are increasingly invalid as a basis for strategic decisions. We propose a framework of proactive cannibalisation that responds to changing customer value, as part of the process for building appropriate innovation strategies for the new competitive and technological environment faced by companies. We provide a framework for managers to evaluate the drivers of successful innovations in developing their strategies.

This paper aims to examine the preferences of students towards different teaching methods and the perceived effectiveness of experiential teaching methods in different operations management (OM) modules.

Student perceptions of different teaching methods and various aspects of an experiential teaching method, in the form of a business simulation game, are examined using survey data from 274 respondents in four small post‐experience and two large pre‐experience OM modules.

The paper's analysis suggests that traditional and experiential teaching methods are both popular with OM students, whilst independent teaching methods are less well liked. Analysis also shows that students on both kinds of OM modules perceive most aspects of the experiential teaching method used in this study (The Operations Game) very positively.

This research study was confined to a particular type of experiential teaching method – a business simulation game. There is a need for further research to investigate the perceived effectiveness of other experiential teaching methods, such as role‐plays and live cases. Furthermore, the paper does not examine the use of experiential teaching methods that do not require the physical presence of students.

For OM educators, the paper clarifies how they might incorporate experiential teaching methods in different class settings. Whilst experiential teaching methods are typically used for small post‐experience modules, these data indicate that the method can also be used on larger pre‐experience modules with great success. The paper also notes a number of challenges involved in using experiential teaching methods on both kinds of module.

This is the first known study to directly examine the perceived effectiveness of an experiential teaching method in both small post‐experience and larger pre‐experience OM modules.

The modern company is having to become increasingly international, to look to overseas markets or even to set up operations within them. This internationalisation of the company means that some method must be found which lays down guidelines for formulating an overall international marketing strategy. If different international markets are seen as basic units of investment, the company should seek to obtain a balanced portfolio of markets, to enable it to allocate its scarce resources with maximum efficiency achieving stable growth in the long term.

In a rapidly changing situation in which the marketing environment is becoming more complex, retail managers are becoming more intensive users of marketing information of various kinds. Nigel Piercy makes the case that the quality of marketing information varies, and that particularly in the case of surveys and tests, there is a need for information to be evaluated before reliance is placed on it for making decisions. This article offers guidelines for such evaluation which may be adapted to various situations.

Marketing, as defined by Nigel Piercy, is both the most essential and the most elusive of practices in the expanding world of warehousing and distribution. His case is that marketing decisions made in the various areas concerning distribution should be carefully evaluated and integrated, resulting in controlled, effective planning. But how accurately can the real effect of marketing be assessed in terms of cost and results? Mr Piercy has carefully dissected the subject, and then reassembled it into a framework for analysis to the simplest and the most sophisticated needs.

In the first of two RDM articles Dr Nigel Piercy discusses the position of marketing in retail firms in the UK. This article examines the findings of a recent survey of the marketing organisation and strategies of some 70 major retailers in the UK, covering some 15% of total retail turnover. The second article will focus specifically on the types of Marketing Department operated by major UK retailers and the implications for the strategic relationship with manufacturers; this article discusses the more general findings of the survey.

In the last issue of RDM Nigel Piercy discussed the general findings of a survey of the operation of the Marketing Department in major UK retail companies, focussing on the emergence of a role for retailer marketing. This second article considers the rather different types of Marketing Department found in the survey, and the relationship between the type of Marketing Department and the strategies adopted by retailers in their relationships with suppliers.

In Part One of this article, published in the last issue of RDM, Nigel Piercy examined the role and importance of sales forecasting within a distributive organisation with special regard to the smaller firm and to the small unit manager who have very limited resources on which to base their predictions. This second part goes on to review some of the methods of forecasting available, and includes a useful practical model of the time series analysis.