Relationship marketing: Providing opportunities and benefits for the construction industry

Abstract

Innovation and new knowledge often comes from an insight into associated areas of research or industry; relationship marketing has its roots in business and many industries have adopted a relationship approach to solicit work. An insight into marketing and in particular relationship marketing explains how construction firms can benefit from this approach in the medium and long term. A review of transactional marketing and relationship marketing is provided showing benefits that accrue to construction from a relationship approach through the project life cycle. Following this a comparison is made between relationship marketing and alliance procurement that link the two. The research finds that whilst an alliance has many attributes that will provide a successful project outcome a relationship approach will enhance procurement in many ways. In seeking to provide an understanding between the project participants' relationship marketing enhances a long-term customer focus and assists in the attainment of organisational achievement.