Evaluating the Strategies for Marketing Project Management System in the Nigerian Construction Industry

Authors

• Godwin Idoro
• J.B. Patunola-Ajayi

Abstract

This study evaluates the level of use of strategies for marketing project management system and their correlation with the patronage of the system. The objectives are to determine the level of use of existing strategies for marketing project management and to evaluate the effect of the strategies on the patronage of the management system. The overall aim is to promote public awareness and use of the management system. To achieve the objectives, a study involving a sample of 25 practising project managers and 25 clients was conducted. For the study, six marketing strategies namely: personal contact, referral, closed advertisement, open advertisement, registration with clients and public awareness programmes and five phases in project life cycle namely: inception, design, tendering, construction and completion were selected. Data were collected using two structured questionnaires which were administered on the study sample. The data were analysed to determine the ranking of the level and stage of use of project management system and the level of use of marketing strategies using mean item score, the test of association in the ranking of the level of use of marketing strategies between clients and project managers using t-test and the test of correlation between marketing strategies and patronage of project management system using Spearman correlation test. The results show that personal contact and referral strategies rank highest in level of use among project managers while the strategy of registration with clients ranks highest among clients. The results further show that project managers are engaged at the construction stage in majority of the study sample. Additional result is that there is a significant correlation between the use of personal contact and registration with clients and clients' use of project management. The study concludes that project managers and their clients differ in their approach to marketing and sourcing of project management services and that the strategies being adopted by project managers are inadequate for promoting public awareness and patronage of project management system. The study suggests that project managers should increase their level of use of registration with clients in order to increase the patronage of the system.