The Roles of Corporate Marketing Strategies and Brand Management in the Global Retail Industry

Introduction

The rapidly evolving consumer needs and habits are bringing radical change to the world’s retail industry (Manasseh, Muller-Sarmiento, Reuter, von Faber-Castell, & Pallua, 2012). The ability to internationalize has become a competitive necessity for many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), enabling their survival and access to larger markets (Dutot, Bergeron, & Raymond, 2014). Marketing must be elevated to a higher level of consciousness. An important step in the internationalization process of emerging economy firms is the shift from exports to foreign direct investment (Gaur, Kumar, & Singh, 2014). Retail internationalization is measured in terms of both exporting and foreign purchasing (Hessels & Parker, 2013). Concerning the international nature of retailing (Bianchi & Ostale, 2006), and corporate and consumer responses toward the issue of globalization (Alden, Steenkamp, & Batra, 2006), there has been little consideration of how international retailers may implement retail marketing strategies abroad, or of how these may compare with those domestically implemented.

Creating and maintaining a good brand relationship is necessary for brand management in emerging markets (Kasemsap, 2014a). From the retailer’s perspective, retail brands represent equity that can have a significant impact on a retailer’s differentiation and competitive superiority (Lymperopoulos, Chaniotakis, & Rigopoulou, 2010). Brand management function needs a partial rethinking since brand managers have to perform the traditional tasks while addressing new challenges (Brexendorf & Daecke, 2012). Corporate brands are strategic assets for organizations, but it is difficult to understand the value added by corporate brand name changes because they often occur simultaneously with business restructuring initiatives (Kalaignanam & Bahadir, 2013).

Business practitioners and researchers have struggled for many years to understand the role of marketing in describing business performance differences between firms (Morgan, 2012). Organizations strive to establish a relationship between brands and consumers (Neudecker, Hupp, Stein, & Schuster, 2012). Strong brand names facilitate competitive advantage (Lee & Back, 2010), increase organizational cash flow (Miller & Muir, 2004), and provide premium price, profitability, and loyalty for customers (Madden, Fehle, & Fournier, 2006).

The strength of this chapter is on the thorough literature consolidation of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the global retail industry. The extant literatures of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the global retail industry provide a contribution to practitioners and researchers by describing a comprehensive view of the functional applications of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the global retail industry to appeal to different segments of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the global retail industry in order to maximize the business impact of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the global retail industry.