The role of internal marketing in the strategic cycle. In fact, internal marketing exists in the whole process of activities. Many excellent companies have a clear “employee first” in their values, which is itself a kind of internal marketing. Such as Kazuo Inamori’s Kyocera, KDDI (Japanese telecommunications operator), Southwest Airlines in the United States, and Haier in China. There will be more companies that put employees first. This is closely related to the level of economic and social development, and it is inevitable for humanism to be widely accepted.
Many companies believe that the goal of internal marketing is to make all employees soldiers, so that all employees can become salesmen and shoulder performance indicators. There may be special reasons for this practice, but this practice is not only a misunderstanding, but also a potential crisis. Simply put, the goal of internal marketing is to unify the concept. Specifically, it is to encourage employees to pay attention to the core competitiveness of the company and build and maintain core competitiveness through everyone’s actions. For cross-border e-commerce companies, they believe that the core competitiveness is marketing, so the goal of internal marketing is for all employees to agree and actively participate in the construction and upgrading of the 13N1 model. Many companies believe that the implementation of internal marketing is mainly based on publicity, mainly preaching marketing strategies, tactical planning and each marketing battle. However, this is another misunderstanding. Internal marketing must be repeatedly preached, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. The more important basic work for implementing internal marketing is actually scientific management. Without the foundation of scientific management, internal marketing will be a flash in the pan, with effects so short-lived that they are unimaginable, and even become a cheap “scam”. The basic work of internal marketing mainly includes:
(1) Truly establish a corporate culture with the corporate mission as the action program. The corporate mission, vision and values must be clearly defined, and the corporate philosophy must be used to guide business decisions and specific actions to the extent that all employees agree.
(2) Construct the corporate organizational structure with the 13N1 concept, improve various management systems, and implement the concept into the system framework. Some companies do not attach importance to the construction of modern corporate management systems, promote “rule by man”, or advocate the misinterpreted “rule by inaction”, which is quite dangerous. If the concept and system framework are ignored for a long time, “rule by man” will be ineffective for “husband-and-wife shops” and may even lead to a quarrel between husband and wife. That is, “rule by man” must be based on scientific management.
(3) Clarify job responsibilities and recruit, train, use and retain talents with the mentality of “employees first”. This point is separated from the previous one in the hope that it will attract the full attention of readers. No matter how good the culture, strategy, and organizational structure are, they all require the participation of every employee. Many cross-border e-commerce companies are in the early stages of entrepreneurship. Because of insufficient manpower and frequent changes, they do not pay attention to the refinement of job responsibilities. This is what is often said as “covering up strategic laziness with the busyness of battle.” The more chaotic the start-up period, the more attention should be paid to clarifying job responsibilities, putting every “people” matter first, doing things before being a person, and adhering to the people-oriented principle. Of course, if employees recognize the culture and system, job responsibilities can be rough and flexible to avoid restricting employees’ subjective initiative.
(4) Refine the appropriate marketing concept. The marketing concept is not only a stage-by-stage strategic statement, but also a guiding ideology, value orientation, and strategic style. For example, Beijing LL E-Commerce Co., Ltd. originally had the operation department obtain customer inquiry opportunities through store data operations. After using the 13N1 model, it required all employees to actively find and contact customers through various channels to obtain business opportunities. This is the strategic style attribute of the marketing concept. The marketing concept is the premise of internal marketing.