Understanding Business Today

In this chapter we consider the question of what are the complex and paradoxical pressures on businesses today to deliver, for example, more corporate value; more sales volume; more gross revenues; more profits; more quality; more cost savings; more technical advantages; more customer service; and so on. We consider the implications for marketing when companies are currently having to comply with so many differing measures (hard and soft) of accountability and performance? We attempt to make sense of their efforts to absorb and reconcile these pressures by first examining what they are actually doing. We use the example of McDonald’s to illustrate the struggles of one of the world’s great marketing corporations to hold its leadership position in a changing business, and consider whether or not it seems able to create a new business ‘model’ in response to these changes. We then explain the conceptual foundations that underpin the changes in marketing practices — and hence this book. We do this by examining the constituent parts of our ‘model’ of contemporary marketing practices that has been developed from our research and studies of the various discourses. This in turn will provide a framework for the remainder of the book.