Aligning relationship marketing with HRM strategy

This conceptual paper notes the re-casting of marketing from a focus on products and transactions to a focus on services and relationships – strongly implying that people are prime. In so doing, it notes that the recruitment, training, development, retention, rewarding and management of people is therefore important in respect of achieving marketing objectives, especially when research already exists demonstrating that a happy workforce helps to cause happy customers. That is – marketing has a great deal to learn from HR, and it is possible to argue that that the means to achieve key marketing objectives already exist within the domain of HR theory and practice. Structurally, the paper summarizes the evolution of marketing from the transactional to the relational and examines two of the areas in which value could be obtained for marketers in drawing on previously existing HR literature and concepts before considering what the future relationship between marketing and HR could, and should be.