Rm in Marketing Strategy

Journal of Management and Marketing Research

Role of Relationship Marketing in Competitive Marketing Strategy

Nagasimha Kanagal

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

Abstract

Competitive Marketing Strategy (CMS) has relationship marketing (RM) as one of the

key functionality in enhancing business performance. RM is defined as the identification,

establishment, maintenance, enhancement, modification and termination of relationships with

customers to create value for customers and profit for organization by a series of relational

exchanges that have both a history and a future. Relational exchanges can be viewed under

transaction cost analysis and social exchange theories depending on the context. The role of RM

in CMS includes: guide moments of truth, improve profitability, build partnering, address

‘Customer Better’, buy in of customer attention, protect emotional well being, understand

consumer psyche, build trust with customer. All these roles are observed empirically in the hotel

industry, with some hotels placing emphasis on their extraordinary operations and services to

engage with the customer.

Key words:

relational exchanges, emotional well being, trust, profitability, partnering

Journal of Management and Marketing Research

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INTRODUCTION

The purpose of competitive strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage

(SCA) and thereby enhance a business performance (Bharadwaj, 1993). One of the major

objectives of marketing strategy is to enhance the long-term financial performance of a firm. As

such competitive marketing strategy serves to improve financial performance of the firm through

the route of sustainable competitive advantages. There are four essential requirements for a

resource/ skill to be a source of SCA (Barney, 1991). It must be valuable; it must be rare among

competitors; it must be imperfectly imitable; there must not be any strategically equivalent

substitutes for this resource skill....