Marketing

Strategic Marketing Management: Building a Foundation for Your Future1
Allen F. Wysocki and Ferdinand F. Wirth2

Abstract
This workbook is designed to help firms and individuals become more familiar with the implications of a strategic marketing management program for their businesses. The workbook provides a basic introduction to marketing and strategic marketing management. Readers willalso learn the basics of a marketing plan and why they need one. Included is a detailed introduction to performing an analysis of the customer, the company, the competition, and the industry as a whole. A major portion of the workbook is devoted to carrying out an effective Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis. This workbook illustrates how analysis can be used to form aneffective strategic marketing plan that could increase efficiency and profitability.

have said about the environment in which we live and the need for strategic planning. Please consider the following passages: “There is but one certainty regarding the times ahead, the times in which managers must work and perform. This certainty is that they will be turbulent times. In turbulent times, the firsttask of management is to make sure of the firm's capacity for survival; to make sure of its structural strength and soundness; and to make sure of its capacity to survive a blow, to adapt itself to sudden change, and to avail itself to sudden change and new opportunities.” [Drucker, 1974] Although this first Peter Drucker passage is appropriate, given the environment early in this, the twenty-firstcentury, it is actually more than 20 years old. Many producers in Florida would agree that these are indeed turbulent times that require firms to take stock of their strengths and ability to seize opportunities.

Strategic Marketing Management Quotes
To set the stage for this strategic marketing management workbook, it is useful to consider what some of the leading strategic management writers1. This is EDIS document FE 299, a publication of the Department of Food and Resource Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Published September 2001. Please visit the EDIS website at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu 2. Allen F. Wysocki, assistant professor, Department of Food and Resource Economics,University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, and Ferdinand F. Wirth, assistant professor, Indian River Research and Education Center, Fort Pierce, FL, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. The use of trade names in this publication is solely for the purpose of providing specific information. UF/IFAS does not guarantee orwarranty the products named, and references to them in this publication does not signify our approval to the exclusion of other products of suitable composition.
The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function without regardto race, color, sex, age, handicap, or national origin. For information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension Service office. Florida Cooperative Extension Service/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences/University of Florida/Christine Taylor Waddill, Dean.

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“Thereare no solutions with respect to the future. There are only choices between alternative courses of action, each imperfect, each risky, each uncertain, and each requiring different efforts and different costs. But nothing could help the manager more than to realize what alternatives are available to him and what they imply.” [Drucker, 1974] The essence of this workbook is to help producers identify...