Marketing planning in Albania as an ex socialist country. Challenges and implications.

Abstract

The last 10 years have seen major changes in the marketing environmennts faced by organisations in the once centrally - planned economies of ex-socialist countries in Europe. These changes and the responses of companies to them have been the subject of our study. This paper addresses the implementation of marketing planning in Albania as an ex-socialist country. Marketing planning in our country is a rudimentary often the emphasis being on shorter-term sales or financial plans rather than longer-term marketing plans. Despite the low levels of marketing planning in general a small group of enthusiatic planners did emerge. Contents of marketing plans are discussed together with issues of marketing plan. To examine the changes taking place in the marketing environments in our country the approaches towards marketing adopted by companies operating in the country the marketing strategies adopted and the organisation of marketing effort. The methods included personal interviews with managers in our country conducted by local academic and researchers followed by mailed and personal surveys completed in spring 2007. A total of 100 personal interviews were conducted in the first phase of the research. These interviews were exploratory in nature and designed to identify respondent terminology in and understanding of marketing and planning issues. Following the preliminary interviews questionnaires were drawn up for the mailed surveys. One questionnaire was then pilot- tested. Final minor changes were made to the questionnaire the following piloting to create the questionnaires for the mailed surveys.