Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning

Strategic market planning is a recent addition to the lexicon of business concepts. Popularized in the late 1970s, strategic market planning became the subject of serious study by academics. At the same time, strategy consultants and corporate executives embraced and contributed to the concept. This healthy interplay between the theory and practice of strategic market planning created an extensive and diverse body of knowledge over the past decade.

Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning appears exactly ten years after Derek Abell and John Hammond introduced the concept with their seminal text, Strategic Market Planning: Problems and Analytical Approaches (Prentice-Hall, 1979). In the ensuing decade, literally hundreds of conceptual and empirically based works have been published examining one or more aspects of strategic market planning. During this period, new ideas and viewpoints surfaced that may influence how strategic market planning is studied and practiced. The purpose of this book is two-fold:

1. To review in depth concepts, analytical techniques, empirical findings, and paradigms that collectively form the foundation for strategic market planning as it is known and practiced today.

2. To introduce emerging concepts, analytical techniques, empirical findings, and paradigms that are likely to alter the nature, scope, and practice of strategic market planning in the foreseeable future.

Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning is designed to provide a comprehensive review and assessment of present knowledge, as well as of new developments that may become germane to future research on and implementation of strategic market planning at the corporate and business unit level of the organization. As such, the contents are designed to provide a context and perspective for the thoughtful scholar, graduate student, and corporate planning executive. The reader will not find prescriptions for how to engage in strategic market planning or prepare a strategic market plan. Rather, the book is descriptive in the sense that it delineates what is known or often unknown in the study and practice of strategic market planning.