What is marketing without its market, a business without someone to deal with and much worse, a company without industry? These questions tell simply what customers can do for an organization in order for them to provide long-term, satisfying and extremely valuable goods or services based on service- centred and oriented logic of marketing. When we say service-oriented marketing, I believe that we should understand that this primarily address the power of consumers to bring unlimited possibilities for opportunities, development and growth of a business, and a way for marketers to render satisfaction through goods or services itself. While on the other hand, goods-based marketing is about the output which is product – improvement of products for distribution and maximizing profits as reflected by sales. While both of them seem fairly applicable, services for me can reach a whole new level when goods are used as a tool for satisfying customers.

Levitt on his “Marketing Myopia” discussed about the narrowness of product-oriented marketing and expanded his views on service-oriented marketing that could help the growth of companies and not drag them to extinction. Levitt believes that the continuous growth of a company includes defining what they are and what industry they are in, for them to think and act according to the needs of consumers without the barrier of being myopic. The role of consumers became popular because it is where the heart of providing goods and services should be, know them well and you can give them what they need. His idea about oil companies being stagnant for growth made me thinking, if only they have defined themselves to be an energy industry, then they should’ve not let outsiders steal opportunities from them. If they have concentrated more on consumer relations, then they should have opened their minds and develop new sources of energy, but instead, they acted as suppliers, supporting other firms and relying on them to provide what they fear to develop by themselves. Companies must stop being nearsighted and embrace the evolution of marketing.

Vargo & Lusch on their “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” discussed briefly the evolution from goods-based marketing to the new age acceptance for service-oriented marketing. There are differences in goods based from service-centred dominant logic and one of them is about the role of the customer. In traditional, they are the recipients and in service-centred they are the co-producer of service. Companies must take cue from them to know what is being demanded. Goods based marketing is a good strategy, but not all of the time. It may have been one but it was a long time ago when that same strategy is still applicable in that certain age.  I believe that there is a reason for service marketing to be thought of by scholars as an innovative strategy in marketing, it’s because in goods-based, there are borders, hindrances and limits to development. Strategies like all others have places that they fit in. Same strategies don’t work efficiently if used the second time, what is needed is the formulation of a more flexible one that will cover important aspects of the whole process.

Another thing that struck me was the idea of mass production being selfish. It aims to produce what they can from what they have and from there, maximize their profits, the problem is – they sell, and marketing is only a residue of selling. Marketing should be about the value, the benefits from goods and services being realized by consumers. There is a huge difference in selling and marketing. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller while marketing focuses on the needs of the buyer. Selling is product made into cash in marketing it provides the overall satisfaction from the creation of goods to the benefits it will serve. My realization about this is that we can mass produce but we should accompany it with hard thinking. Companies need to understand of consumer preferences, not their own need for profit. Success should also be based on the companies’ followers and they are the consumers.

Levitt,  Vargo and Lusch may have lived from different time but what they all have in common is that they find goods-based process incomplete, myopic, the reason that service marketing emerged as the new dominating factor is because it holds the key point to success – the customers. It is also true that service-based process is full of research. The idea is to pay wisely and appropriately to researches done, never do it with bias to suit the needs of sellers. Never settle for filtered results that cling directly to the answers that companies wanted to hear in the first place. Consumers are unpredictable, study their preferences and they can give continuous growth. In the future, this also strategy may also come to a point that it will be obsolete, but through guidance of consumers the growth will still be possible. Companies should aim not only for success, but also with entrepreneurial greatness.

Last Christmas and during the Holiday season on 2009, I did a lot of traveling. I went coast to coast with my friends and did a lot more traveling on wheels with my family. With all those trips, I developed my road safety awareness in an instant, because me being the driver for all those trips should be knowledgeable about the road and everything about it. Driving long distances can be tough, the roads are long, the nights can be frightful and not all areas where there are roads have an emergency pit stop.  What if my tire wore down, or the engine overheated in the middle of nowhere? What if my tools are not enough to fix my car? and the most fearsome problem is, what if I don’t know how to deal with it? Another question is, what if I’m driving a RV or a motorhome, can someone help me fix something this huge?

Good thing there are companies who offer their services to help aid those who are in need of assistance, just like Good Sam RV who offers motorhome towing for those who are traveling with RVs. That’s right! we can worry no more because this company is fast and excellent in their line of work. It is also true that they fix those RVs, motorhome which are in need, and it is also try that they can fix your cars as well. So there should be no need to worry about traveling now, because wherever we are there will be some folks that will give us road side assistance. With them around, going places can be quite assuring!

It has been a very tiring day for me and my mom because we went shopping for groceries days before Christmas. The Grocery store was packed with shoppers and the lines are excruciatingly long, its was hard to move around but the good part is we found everything we need on a one-stop shopping basis that means less hassle for us. Another thing that I admire is that the development of POS systems years and years ago, what if it was not invented? What if those barcode scanners are not used? How long would it take to cash out of the grocery and how long would it take for a transaction to be managed? Calculator, pen and paper would do just fine but it is not enough to efficiently be used for a transaction especially in a busy crowd where everyone is waiting to cash out.

Anyway, we had fun shopping for groceries because everything went out smoothly as planned and budgeted. The prices? good. there are little changes to prices of groceries and it can not be felt in an instant. Now that we are happy for what we have stocked for Christmas, the next thing we will do is to celebrate with my family and make it even more fun for all. Have a Happy Holidays!!