doing business (Zineldin, 2006). Marketing is about how to integrate customer into the design of the product. As such organisations have to work with customers and discover ways to make the business more efficient for themselves and the customers.

There have been several definitions of the term marketing and the most common ones are:

Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers requirements profitably”.

American Marketing Association (2007) states: “Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders”.

According to Kotler (2007), “Marketing is about satisfying wants and needs through an exchange process”.

2.1.2 The Marketing Era

In 1950s Scholars argue that marketers should pay more attention to customers’ needs and wants to achieve and maintain successful business relationships. As quoted by Kotler & Keller (2007), instead of ‘hunting’ marketing is ‘gardening’. In this respect marketing concept view customers as ‘king‘ and their needs should be the point of departure for any marketing process.

2.1.3 The Marketing Mix

Marketing mix concept is one of the core concepts of marketing theory, introduced by Jerome McCarthy in 1965. According to Brassington & Pettitt (2003), marketing mix creates an offering for customers. McCarthy and Perreault (1987) defined marketing mix as controllable variables that an organization can coordinate to satisfy its target m