2019 Volume 39 Issue 1 Pages 97-105
Traditionally, marketing research has taken the view that competition should be avoided. However, given today’s environment, which is characterized by intense and rapid competitive moves, there is a need for a new marketing research approach that begins from the premise that competition is unavoidable and explores key success factors for getting or keeping ahead of competitors. This paper refers to such research as “competitive marketing strategy” and examines its framework. Through a multidisciplinary review, the competitive dynamics view, rooted in the Austrian School of Economics, is identified as the suitable research framework. Also, marketing research is shown to provide new insights by incorporating the following three ideas into the competitive dynamics view; (1) customer relationship management, (2) distributor relationship management, and (3) portfolio management.
