摘要：Crisis is a period of “creative destruction” in which old strategies, technologies, products and industries become obsolete and new ones are born. A crisis does not just threaten firms’ survival, but could also act as an incentive to develop or find new ways of operating business enterprises. The main objectives of this study were to examine, first, whether the economic crisis has affected the operations of Croatian companies in general, and secondly, to test the influence of marketing strategies on business performance and identify those that are the most effective in this respect. The work is based on empirical data obtained via mail survey conducted in 2011, to which 371 owners and managers of companies in the Croatian metal and wood industries responded. Analysis of the collected responses showed that these companies mainly focused on survival of their operations and financial savings. Radical measures, such as distinctive restriction (layoffs and closure of facilities) or development breakthroughs (investment in human resources, strategic takeover, etc.) were less pronounce. In addition, the results suggest that profitable businesses require greater marketing effort during crisis, rather than for survival. With some limitations imposed by objective circumstances (for example, a small research budget, or the inability to measure success by objective criteria rather than subjective statements of owners and managers), the study, except for scientific contributions, provides some useful guidelines on how to successfully deal with the crisis.
