The Impact of Internal Marketing on External Marketing in Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract

The oil and gas industry has long been one of the biggest business sector in the world. However, this industry is undergoing business downturns due to an increasingly dynamic business environment, effect of pandemic and environmental issues. To survive and remain competitive in the market, it is irrefutable that internal customers, or employees, within an organization play a crucial role in attracting and retaining external customer. Therefore, effective management of internal marketing directed at internal customers can be essential to external marketing efforts. The purpose of this research is to study the impact of internal marketing on external marketing through job satisfaction in the oil and gas industry. The five internal marketing elements included in this study are employment security, generous rewards, knowledge management and knowledge sharing, company’s sharing of information and employee empowerment. Semi-structured interview with predetermined open-ended questions was employed for this research. The results of this study show that all five internal marketing elements have an impact on job satisfaction and all of them also affect work performance, except employment security. Reward system and employee empowerment are considered extremely crucial factors affecting employee’s job satisfaction. The findings also suggest that job satisfaction can positively influence employees to perform extra-role behaviors directed at external customer. Hence, this shows that effective internal marketing is the precedent of successful external marketing.