The marketing concept emerged in mid-1950s and challenged the preceding concepts (i.

e the production, product and selling concept). Instead of make and sell philosophy, the business shifted to a customer centered, sense and respond philosophy. The job is not to find the right customers for your products, but to find the right product for your customers. The marketing concept holds the key to achieving organizational goals is being more effective than competitors in creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value to your chosen target markets. For example, Dell computers do not prepare a perfect computers for its target market. Rather, it provides product platform on which each person customizes the features he/she desires in the computer. The marketing concept is about matching a companies capabilities with customer wants. This matching process takes place in what is called marketing environment. Under this concept,1) starting point is target market 2) focus is on customers need 3) means is integrated marketing 4) end is profits through customer satisfaction.

Ques 1) The company was originally rather unfocussed, working on a wide range of electronic products for industry. Till 1984 H-P followed a product oriented philosophy and its prime focus was on the technology. After 1984, H-P launched products like compact computers and two printers (named laserjet and thinjet) for mass markets and utilized strategies similar to FMCG companies and tried to relate with customers and create a brand family by giving names to its products rather than numbers.

Ques 2) H-P over the years has undergone various changes which indicate that it has altered its marketing mix in order to become more market oriented. Some of the alterations werea) PRODUCT H-P shifted its focus from from handheld calculators to personal computers as they believed that PCs are the way of future. Moreover , when PCs first came on the scene, early business users needed a fast way to get quality hard copy of texts, spreadsheets and graphs pumped out by their softwares. H-P quickely recognized this need and came out with its laserjet brand printers. And when it saw fast growth in home computing, in order to reach the general consumers, it came up with inkjet technique(i.e. a new way for customers to do low cost color printing).

PRICE H-P used competitive and wide range of pricing based on differentiated products. It attracted wholesalers and retailers by offering greater margins. when it saw fast growth in home computing, in order to reach the general consumers, it came up with inkjet technique(i.e. a new way for customers to do low cost color printing).

b) PLACE In order to cover this aspect, H-P began offering better payment terms and large quantity discounts to its dealers. As a result of improved dealer relations the company increased the number of full-line retailers from 350 to 750 and it stocked another 1050 dealers with a portion of line.

c) PROMOTION Over the years as the company grew we can see that the focus of H-P has been to create brand equity of the company and its products. It changed its strategy from push based to pull based.