Abstract: The construction industry has been very slow to recognise the advantages of marketing as a tool to improve performance either in terms of market shares, level of sales or profitability. The main reason for the slowness stems from the fact that for a very long period post-war — indeed up to 1973 — the workload on the industry rose gradually so that the industry was never really short of work in spite of the complaints about stop/go. In fact there was a sellers' market. Another reason was that the major clients were in the public sector. Contractors' major marketing effort was therefore not directed towards seeking work in a particular market area or from a certain client or group of clients, but towards getting on the tender list for construction work for central government, local authorities and nationalised industries. Their marketing behaviour towards the public-sector client was replicated where private clients were concerned. There was thus no need for them to put any effort into sophisticated marketing of their products since once on the tender list the dominant decision factor was that of price. Nor did they see the need to apply marketing techniques to increase their workload for the private sector.
Publication Year: 1990
Publication Date: 1990-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
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