Publisher's Synopsis
Students taking the new Diploma course in Financial Services Marketing of the Chartered Institute of Marketing as well as those on degree and postgraduate courses, including Chartered Institute of Bankers students will find this edited book combines principles, concepts and techniques with practice.;The financial services sector has, in recent years, been among the fastest-growing areas in the UK economy. Progressive deregulation, in conjunction with increases in personal income and wealth, expansion in other sectors of the economy, trends towards globalization and developments in information technology, have created an increasingly competitive and demand-driven financial services sector.;Although the role of marketing has increased in importance in the financial services sector, it has tended to play a primarily tactical, rather than strategic, role in business development.;Recent surveys by the authors of this book, show that the most important factors in the growth strategies of financial services organizations are advertising, direct marketing, information technology and internal organizational factors. This reflects a growing realization that marketing, almost by definition, is a strategic activity, and that in a period of rapid environmental change organizational efficiency is not sufficient to ensure business success. The successful organization needs to be effective, it needs to be in the right markets with the right products and at the right time. This requires that organizations adopt a more proactive stance and that in this context, marketing has a key role to play in identifying the most appropriate markets and products.;The growing importance of marketing and its strategic function in the financial services sector provides part of the rationale for this book.;In this text, the authors seek to provide a thorough coverage of the key issues which surround the marketing of financial services. It is anticipated that the reader will have some familiarity with basic marketing concepts and, accordingly, the authors concentrate on illustrating the application of these concepts in the financial services sector.;The book itself comprises three integrated parts. In view of the importance of changes in environmental factors in the development of an organizations strategic and tactical marketing, the first part reviews these developments and consider their marketing implications. It considers supply-side factors, which include regulatory changes in both the UK and the EC, the effects of globalization and the impact of developments in information technology. Finally, it also considers both buyer-behaviour at the level of the individual and broader trends in the aggregate market.;Trevor Watkins is the senior examiner for the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma in marketing financial services and Mike Wright has also written "The Future of the Building Societies", "Marketing Financial Services" and "Internal Organizations, Efficiency and Profit".
