Emirates Airlines Strategic Marketing

In the present business environment organizations that develop and implement effective marketing strategies can create more value for their customers. An effective marketing strategy provides direction, improves brand image, helps in developing right goals and enhances the overall performance of organization. Marketing plays a vital role in strategic management process.

Strategic marketing is all about helping the organization develop a unique identity in the market, grow its business geographically and serve the customer better than competitors.

Strategic marketing is a continuous process of developing marketing strategies taking into consideration the constantly evolving trends in business environment and by giving utmost importance to customer satisfaction. It helps the organization to achieve competitive advantage and sustain it over a longer period of time.

This strategic marketing plan focuses on marketing strategies of the Emirates Airline Strategic Business Unit, in United Arab Emirates. The strategies are concerned with the market, product, pricing, distribution and communication/ promotion strategies for the Emirates Airlines.

Emirates Airlines (also known as Fly Emirates) is a major airline in the Middle East, and a subsidiary of The Emirates Group. It is the national airline of Dubai, United Arab Emirates and operates over 1,990 passenger flights per week, from its hub at Dubai International Airport, to 157 destinations in 55countries across 6 continents. The company also operates four of the world's longest non-stop commercial flights from Dubai to Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Houston, and San Francisco, all on the Boeing 777-200LR, & has latest Airbus A380 aircrafts for destinations like Bangkok. Emirates Airlines is subsidiary of The Emirates Group, which has over 40,000 employees' from101 nationalities, and is wholly-owned by the Government of Dubai directly under the Investment Corporation of Dubai. Cargo activities are undertaken by the Emirates Group's Emirates Sky-Cargo division.

1.1 Role of strategic marketing in an organization

Strategic marketing concept is a philosophy, focus, orientation

which emphasizes the proper identification of marketing opportunities

as the basis for marketing planning and corporate growth.

Strategic Marketing Management

 The management of the process of making strategy and of making strategy happens.

 "A systematic approach to a major and increasingly important responsibility of ... Management: to position and relate the firm to its environment in a way which assures its success and makes it secure from surprises" Ansoff & McDonnell (1990).

 Underlying purpose: to maintain fit or alignment between the organization's activities and its operating environment

 Staying in fit means managing the organization so as to stay aligned with changes in the surrounding world.

Strategic marketing management's primary focus is that of ensuring that an organization's marketing operations and activities align with its environment, both external and internal.

Effectiveness and Benefits of Strategic marketing

Strategic marketing is often frustrating because the environment is so difficult to understand and predict. The communication and choices require within the organization can create strain and internal resistance. The most valuable organizational resource is management time is absorbed. The alternative of simple waiting for and reacting to exceptional opportunities often seems adequate and efficient. But despite these costs and problems, strategic marketing has potential.

Here are some of the significant factors that contribute towards strategic marketing:

* Battle of market share

* Deregulation in many industries

* Shift in channel structure.

* Competition from overseas

* Fragmentation of markets-(higher per capita income and more sophisticated consumer)

* Shorten product life cycle

* Demographic shifts (in families all working)

Strategic marketing is basically proactive means changing in accordance with change anticipitated like wearing a sweater to protect itself but with a creative approach also that enables the company to engineer changes to suit itself like using a heater to warm up the room. On the contrary in marketing without strategy used in basically reactive and predetermined

1.2 Processes involved in strategic marketing

A marketing