Responding to fundamental shifts on the procurement side, relationship marketing is a timely theme in practice, an area of longstanding interest among researchers, and a topic of central importance in the business marketing course. In relation to bargain holidays and / or package holidays, relationship marketing covers a broad domain and includes all marketing activities directed toward establishing, developing, and maintaining successful exchanges with customers, alliance partners, and other constituents. To effectively initiate and sustain a profitable relationship with a customer, the business marketer must carefully manage the multiple linkages that define the relationship.
Several market forces, however, pose a challenge to the business marketer in implementing relationship strategies. Customers are demanding more customized services, emphasizing supply chain techniques to lower total “cost in use,” and demanding more product variety. In turn, as firms have increased the speed of new product development cycles, little attention has been paid to the impact that the increased flow of new offerings has on downstream marketing activities. Often, sales and service units do not have sufficient time to learn the new technology and to develop coordinated plans for strategy implementation.
