SIGNIFICANCE AND PLACE OF MARKETING PLANN ING IN ENTERPRISES

The environment in which the enterprises operate is characteristic of a strong competition. It is increasingly stressed that future successe s can be based only upon a patient and systematic analysis and evaluat ion of both domestic and foreign markets. Marketing planning and conti nual marketing analysis has a character of a long-term investment. Pra ctically, marketing planning is a complicated process ranging from ana lysis to setting the goals, strategies, programmes, budgets and vice v ersa up to the consideration of the basic limitation that encounters e very enterprise. It is a logical sequence of activities that lead to d efining the marketing gears and formulating the plans ensuring to meet the set targets. It is necessary to bear in mind that marketing plann ing is a managerial process. As far as the formal side of marketing pl anning is concerned it is a structural process that defines a variety of alternatives, expresses them verbally, formulate the marketing Seal s in such way that they should be consistent with general business tas ks as well as with planning and calculations of specific activities. T he process of marketing planning is, therefore, clearly arranged and u niversally applicable. The universal characteristic makes it, however, extremely complex, just to consider such questions as the size of an enterprise, the rate of internationalization of an enterprise, managem ent style, turbulence rate in external surroundings, competition aggre ssiveness, marketing development level, market share, technological ch anges and others. The enterprises systematically analyzing the marketi ng milieu have two important priorities. Firstly, the managerial decis ion-making is more objective because the system enables to identify th e enterprise competition priorities as well as ensuring the compliance of business resources with market opportunities. As a matter of fact, many disputes of functional managers among themselves originate from a total absence of structural and segmentation approach to market anal ysis. Secondly, the ability of the management to know the problems of individual divisions and departments, and to react adequately, is impr oved. It is a consequence of marketing information that offers the pos sibility to evaluate all the marketing activities of the enterprise an d a reasonable resource allocation among them in a complex way. Wherev er marketing planning fails the reasons must be looked for in an unade quate concentration on technical and administration side of planning i nstead of providing useful information to management. The failure of p lanning and the resistance to marketing planning may be expected also where enterprises ''delegate'' the marketing planning to a single plan ner because planning cannot be delegated to a third person in the case of a line management. Planning activity of a marketing planner should be rooted in a coordinate, supporting and service function aimed at h elping those responsible of fulfilment of plans.