Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Bargaining power – the power of some employees in negotiating terms of employment 
because of the rarity of their skills, level of seniority, relevant experience and qualifica-
tions. This suggests the need for richer benefits packages (not necessarily money).
● 
Choice barriers – the recruitment and pay policies set up by an employer to prevent 
people entering or leaving the firm. The goal of action here is to counter the bargaining 
power of some employee groups.
Although this example is specific to the ‘employer brand’, it illustrates nicely the use of 
segmentation principles in the internal market that are drawn directly from those used in 
the consumer market (Moroko and Uncles, 2009).
Internal marketing programmes
These specify which internal marketing programmes will be needed in each internal market 
segment to achieve the objectives we have set. In each area we need to collect our thoughts 
about the rational issues, but also the human and cultural issues. To us the product may 
be a new marketing plan that we need to inform people about (internal marketing com-
munications), through formal presentations (internal marketing distribution), adjusting 
commission and evaluation systems as need be (internal marketing price). To the internal 
customer, the same plan may be about disruption and threat (product), loss of initiative and 
status (price), imposed without consultation by management (communication) and rigor-
ously ‘policed’ through coercion (distribution). If internal marketing is about anything, it 
is about confronting and coping with this conflict. It is this confrontation that will drive us 
away from thinking about internal marketing as simply writing customer care brochures and 
doing great plan presentations, towards coping with the human and organisational realities 

---

473
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL PARTNERSHIP AS INTERNAL MARKETING
of what strategic change involves and costs. This is also the stage to take a look at the cost 
implications of what we now see to be necessary in our internal marketing: does the internal 
marketing cost mean that the external market strategy is no longer attractive? Do we have to 
account for an internal marketing cost that is more than we expected, but bearable? Do we 
have to change the external strategy to reduce the internal marketing cost? Are there cheaper 
ways of achieving the critical internal marketing goals?