Strategic Marketing Management In The Nigerian Oil And Gas Sector
[A case study of NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION - NNPC]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of strategic marketing strategies on the performance of firms in the downstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. The specific objectives of the study include determining how the industry environmental performance indices can affect the various strategies and factors of Nigerian oil and gas marketing companies; determining how inter-industry marketing commitment and company goal actualization can affect the performance of Nigerian oil and gas marketing companies. This study adopted a survey research methodology to examine the strategic marketing strategies of Nigerian oil and gas marketing companies in an attempt to attain their desired level of performance. One hundred and ten (110) respondents were chosen from the target population of three hundred and twenty five (325) in the National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Benin City, through stratified random sampling.

The overall results suggest that strategic marketing strategies are a driver of organizational positioning in a dynamic environment, and that it helps to enhance the development of new product/service for existing markets. These findings, along with other interesting findings of the study, are discussed. From the empirical and anecdotal managerial evidence as well as from the literature implications are drawn for the efficient and effective strategic marketing strategies in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Based on the findings of the study, the concepts and principles of total quality management within a holistic framework it is recommended that (i) efforts should be made by organizational marketers towards understanding the relevant economic factors that affect both clients’ behaviour and the strategic options that may be adopted to cope with such behaviours; (ii) in a constantly changing business environment, firms can adopt different strategic marketing strategies since the yardstick is the enhancement of business performance.