17. Linking Marketing to Strategy

The growth of institutional autonomy with its associated responsibility for planning has been an international phenomenon within education over the last decade. The delegation of management responsibility has been but one element in the creation of quasi markets (Barlett and Le Grand, 1993) by governments is per suit of a range of political goals. This has been a shift in the nature of accountability in schools and colleges. The traditional emphasis on professional accountability (accountability to the profession of teaching and its self-established values and aims) has been replaced by both increasing political accountability and market accountability. Schools and colleges have been caught in the middle of an ideological struggle within right-wing administrations between, on the one hand, libertarian ideologies emphasizing the concepts of choice and individualism, the reduction of government 'control' and the removal of the perceived protectionism of professionalism in state services and, on the other hand, conservative ideologies emphasizing strong central control. 'Marketization' has pursued the 'three Es' of efficiency, economy end effectiveness, seeking the downward cost pressures of competition, but has also developed in an environment in which strong government funding and curriculum policies have severely distorted the nature of the market. Active marketisation is well exemplified by developments in England and Wales following, in the case of schools, the Education Reform Act 1988 and, for further education institutions, the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. In schools open enrolment has given parents a theoretical right to make a free choice of school for their child, while formula funding under the local management of schools imitative directly links school income to pupil numbers. In addition the encouragement of diversity of school type with the development of inter alias grant-maintained schools has extended choice for parents. While the reality of parental choice is questionable (e.g. Gewirtz et al., 1995), competition between schools has clearly developed. In the post compulsory field competition between providers has always been inherent.Competition, the market and self-management have come to institutions hand in hand. The 'new managerialism' (Clarke and Newman, 1992) of the 1990s is predicated on accountability and effectiveness in the market-place, and planning and strategy are now essential components of management (both pragmatically and statutorily!) linking strategy and planning to the market, however, is problematical. Across education, experience of planning is limited, knowledge of marketing as a concept and as a management skill is poorly developed, and the realities of education markets mean governments not only impose tight constrains on the market-place but also 'move the goalposts' quite frequently. Furthermore, since the 'market' is a mechanism designed to minimize 'producer control', there is an inherent tension between formal and rational planning approaches and market processes.The relationship between marketing and strategy is complex. The Institute of Marketing defines marketing as 'the management process which identifies, anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably'. Identifying and anticipating customer requirements is clearly an input into the planning and strategizing process, while the 'supply' element involves managing delivery of the institution's service or product. Strategy must be informed by market considerations, therefore, yet many other factors are also of importance in developing institutional strategy, for schools and colleges have wide social and humanitarian objectives. The market may be important, but it is not the sole consideration in planning.Planning and marketing are intimately linked, therefore, but are not synonymous, so that senior managers must make judgments about the importance of market considerations in their planning. After examining the nature of marketing, it considers a range of planning approaches which build responsiveness' to the market into institutional from first principles. The principles it considers relate to schools and colleges of all sizes, for planning and strategizing in relation to the market are essential equally to small primary schools and large colleges, differences between them lying only in the scale and complexity of the strategizing process.