An Approach to Marketing Implementation with the Perspective of Wu Hsing

Wu Hsing, five elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth), was held by the ancients to compose the physical universe and later used in traditional Chinese medicine to explain various marketing implementation. Marketing refers to the sum of activities involved in directing the flow of goods and service from producers to consumers. Marketing's principal function is to promote and facilitate exchanges. The originality lies in a attempt to answer 1) what kind of connection between the eastern Wu Hsing theory and the western marketing business theory there could be when they are two totally different realms, and 2) what similarities there could be between the five elements and the organizational management of marketing, by which the solutions to existing problems in marketing implementation with the perspective of Wu Hsing are presented. The significance of the attempt lies in an assumption that if the ancient wisdom endows us a new perspective to implement modern business strategies. The more the assumption being verified, culturally the brighter the ancient wisdom's light shed on human culture, and technically the more efficient the marketing implementation is.