Marketing development in civil engineering consultancy firms in South Africa

The paper reviews the overall marketing concept as reported in the literature, determines the level of applications of the marketing concept in consulting firms, and establishes the current practice of marketing in consulting civil engineering firms in South Africa. Consulting civil engineering firms in the Western Cape have adopted marketing concepts in their practice. The majority of firms reported the existence of marketing departments or designated individuals. Marketing was found to be an activity that involved all of the employees of the firms. However, most of the firms had neither a marketing research department, nor carried out any formal research into the markets. Furthermore, civil engineering practices placed very little emphasis on the communications aspect of marketing such as advertising. Marketing is considered a legitimate management function by consulting civil engineers. However, it is still being implemented in a haphazard fashion and is largely unstructured and informal. It is recommended that in order to implement marketing, firms need to: define their company's objectives; plan their marketing strategies around client's needs; implement their marketing strategies in such a way that all employees are involved, and carefully monitor and control the marketing programme.