P. K. Srivastava. Marketing Management in a Developing Economy.New Delhi: Sterling Publishers. 1991. vi + 559 pp.Price: Indian Rs300.00

Marketing management is an important topic for those projectsthat depend on maximizing the sale of their output, especially in theindustrial and agricultural sectors of the developing countries. This,however, does not mean that marketing management is only applicable tothe directly productive/extractive sectors of the economy. Increasingly,with the passage of time, the service sector in both the developed andthe developing countries has also expanded dramatically (pakistan’sfastest growing sector is the service sector). Here, also, marketingmanagement can play an important role. Five discrete steps can besingled out when a project is to be established; namely, identification,preparation, appraisal, implementation, and evaluation. This wholeprocess is called the ‘project cycle’, and all projects, irrespective ofthe sector of the economy in which they are being established, have tofollow in a sequential order the different stages outlined at thebeginning of this paragraph. At the same time, it should be pointed outthat, in the present-day world, project preparation and appraisal, inparticular, have become very interdisciplinary in nature. Thus, it wouldbe no surprise to have economists, anthropologists, demographers,marketing specialists, and engineers all working together in the designand implementation of projects. Further, it need not be over-emphasizedthat proper project identification and execution helps to propel thegrowth rate upwards, raising the living standards and improving thegeneral economic well-being, which are the stuff ofdevelopment.