. Moreover, regardless of the wide acceptance of the marketing philosophy in principle and the appreciation of its significance to modern day business, it appears that, in practice, only a limited number of firms implement the marketing concept effectively. It is therefore not surprising that most of the firms there have been called to enhance their overall degree of marketing effectiveness.
We should also notice that the most significant predictor of the customer based performance measure (customer retention) and profitability (profit margin) is customer philosophy. All the other four marketing effectiveness dimensions - operational efficiency, strategic orientation, adequate marketing information, and integrated marketing organisation also exert a significant impact on customer retention. However, the regression analysis also indicates that, with regard to the growth based performance measure (sales growth), adequate marketing information replaces customer philosophy as the strongest determinant of performance. Thus, the emphasis placed upon each dimension of marketing effectiveness appears to be determined by the performance objective set by the financial services firm. However, one can deduce from the research findings that customer philosophy is of primary importance in a financial services context.
The practice of the industry market has shown that there is a strong positive relationship between the kind of marketing culture a service firm has and its degree of marketing effectiveness. Even when the possible effects of firm size and geographical scope are removed, the relationship between culture and effectiveness remains significant. In other words, the number of employees working in a particular service establishment (e.g. five or 500) and the geographical scope of the firm (e.g. local or global) do not significantly moderate the impact culture has on