Relationship Marketing And Survival Of Indigenous Companies In The Nigeria Food And Beverage Industry In Lagos Metropolis

ABSTRACT

In the era of global business and competitiveness, for organizations to survive and effectively adapt to the changing environment, as well as achieve their set marketing goals and objectives, they need to design different marketing strategies and policies. Relationship marketing is one of such contemporary marketing strategies employed in both developed and developing economies. This research study sought to explore whether relationship marketing is adopted by organizations in the Nigerian food and beverage industry and also to see if the application of analytical techniques, specifically the Analytical Hierarchy Process (a technique which incorporates qualitative as well as quantitative factors), will enhance the intelligent practice of relationship marketing, especially by indigenous companies thereby helping them overcome competition from multinationals.

An exploratory research using both qualitative and quantitative approach was conducted; judgmental sampling and disproportionate stratified sampling were used to select a sample of 67(55 indigenous companies and 12 multinationals) out of a population size of 130 food and beverage companies in Lagos metropolis; 300 research instruments were administered to each stratum. And through Snowball sampling, questionnaires were administered to a sample of 400 customers of these companies. The data gathered were analyzed using the SPSS 15.0 and Expert Choice (ECS) software. The Hypotheses were tested using: percentages, descriptive statistical tables, Student's t- Test, ANOVA, and Correlation analysis, at the 95% confidence level; post Hoc tests were also conducted for improved analysis.

This study has found out that some organizations in the Nigerian food and beverage industry have adopted relationship marketing the relationship marketing variables they adopt are trust, relationship commitment, communication, internal marketing and support and cooperation.