Managing products

A perennial argument amongst marketing academics is: ‘Which comes first, the product or the market?’ Acceptance of the product-market concept discussed in Section 1.7(b) should terminate the argument, since it acknowledges the joint and equal importance of both subjects. Provided the concept is followed it does not matter if marketing teams study markets or products first. However, since most firms these days are working with restricted resources, because of their cost, it may be more appropriate to start with the product. Here as elsewhere we use ‘product’ to cover services as well.