Unit 3 Marketing Essentials BTEC Level 5 HND Diploma Business Regent College Higher Education

TASK1 ROLE OF MARKETING AND INTERRELATIONS WITH OTHER FUNCTIONAL UNITS OF ORGANIZATION

a)Key roles and responsibilities of marketing function and their relationshipin context to organizational Significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units

Every marketing strategy is based upon creating a theme for the product which satisfies the expectations of the consumers. It should also help the company to increase the sales and thereby market share. Thus, it can be said that a marketing strategy is used for the promotion of a product in a market. The foremost agenda of the successful marketing is to conduct a thorough research with regards to the product, the markets, the targeted audience, then preparing a plan for the product, development plan for the product at various stages, assistance with increase in the sales of the product and then also helping the consumers with any service related issues. Any company which is going ahead with a new product has to perform various functions listed above to make a successful plan. There are almost all the departments which are involved in the process of marketing and they can be listed as finance department, research and development department, manufacturing department, sales and marketing department, distribution and logistics department, and Human resource department. A successful marketing plan needs strong coordination among all of these departments and then performing the functions towards the marketing plan.

All the departments in the organization are in one way or the other are connected with the marketing functions. It can also be said the marketing department is one of the strongest department in the organization and it propels the working of the other departments. Any organization which want to create a marketing plan for their product and want it to be the best in the market then it has to rely on the support of the sales department, finance department, human resource department, production department, and other supporting department which are present in the organization. In case of McDonalds this holds true as well, in the case of any promotional offer which is strategized by the marketing department such as BOGO i.e. buy one and get one free then the marketing department cannot just execute it on their own. They need the support from all the departments for making it a success. Support from finance department is required for the budget for promotion and also for procurement of materials to be used for the promotion. Support from the human resource department is required for the purpose of staffing as there will more staff required to execute the offer. McDonalds have a separate marketing department still they need support of each and every department in the organization for its working and also for the execution of strategies which are devised by them. All of this in turns helps the company to make more profit and support its departments and working. The vital function of a marketing department is to increase the profits of the company by increasing and expanding the market share. Thus, in event of increase of sales of the organization the production also has to go up in proportion to that. The role of the finance department is to provide budget to the marketing team for its working. The purpose of the logistics department is to ensure that the product reaches the consumer on time be it the raw materials delivery from the warehouse to the store outlet or the home delivery of the products ordered by the customer. Even the human resource department has it own importance as they only employee the staff in each and every department thus they need to function well to have proper staff as per requirement of the job. Each department has a specific role to play in making the marketing plan a success and each department has to work in coordination with the other departments to make the end customer feel the benefits of the product (Lewis, 2013).

b) The basic concept of marketing and future needs, Overview of the elements of marketing process

The elements of a marketing process can be broadly classified into five major components. An effective marketing plan does not only take care of the present however is prepared to take care of the future demand which can come up from the customers. These five components of the marketing process are also present in the marketing for McDonald’s products. These are the concept of production, concept of selling, concept of product, concept of marketing and concept of society.

Production Concept: An organization has to be always working for their customers and has to be centric to them. Any customer would like to have a product which is giving value for their money and is also of a good quality. When these two criteria’s get fulfilled then the marketing department can say that the plan was a success. This will further boost the sales of the organization and also positively impact the profitability of the company. An organization can also manufacture the products in bulk quantities to get benefit of scale of economies and a close watch has to be kept on the rate of production versus sales in market.

Product Concept: This concept covers the aspects related to the product and highlight that any customer who is going to buy the product has to be of decent quality and meets the expectations of the customer. In case the product is not at par to their consumers needs and expectations then they will not go ahead to buy the product. There is also seasonality in the demand of a product which the company has to keep in mind which production of the product. An organization should always be creative and keep on developing new products keeping in mind the demands and trend in the markets.

Selling Concept: The selling concept is related to creation of need of the product in the targeted audience. A customer will buy a product only when they have a need for it or they are attracted to the features of the product. The selling concept gives the tools and means to assist sales in the selling of the product.

Marketing Concept: The concept is related to how the company should fulfill the demand which is currently available. The world today is very competitive and they should be able to provide world class product and the services to strive in the market. It is the marketing department which helps to create an image of the product in the minds of the customer which gives a positive vibe to them. It has to be the goal of the marketing team to ensure that the product is placed in the positive mindset of the customer to make a product successful.

Societal Concept: The concept relates to the social environment in which the company operates and has the external factors impacting the organization. The organization has to be committed towards the upbringing of the society and ensuring the environment is favorable for the customer. The product which the company is producing should not have any harm on the environment and the society (McDonald, 2013).

c) Roles and responsibilities of marketing with respect to marketing environment

There are important roles and responsibilities of the marketing department which they need to fulfill for the success of the marketing plan, strategy or the overall department. The efficient usage of the various concepts of market is also known as marketing management. It involves attributes such as selling, distribution, logistics, pricing, promotion etc. Below we have discussed the various marketing roles:

Market Strategies: The first and foremost role of any marketing team is to create a marketing plan and the strategies around it for its implementation. All of this has to be created with keeping in mind the current needs and expectations of the customers. The strategies are the link which strongly binds the customer with that of the end objective of the organization.

Marketing information system: This is a system which is used just as a database to which has all the information with regards to the consumer preferences, product features, customer geographies etc. This tool helps all the other department to pull out information which is then used by them to create strategies around the product

Evaluation of the marketing environment: There are lot of factors which impact the marketing environment. The factors are controlled and uncontrolled and can include the factors such as societal environment, cultural environment, political environment, economic environment. The needs and expectations of the customers is very much depended on these factors and the companies should develop a product in a specific location after studying all of these factors to ensure their product is a success

Marketing research: Research is a key for getting the right information and then using them to make the product, marketing strategy and dealing with the marketing environments. It is said that right input will give us a right output thus this step is not only continuous however should be done diligently to make the product successful in the market.

Market segmentation: Selecting the right audience for your product and devising a strategy for the targeted audience is one of the most important aspect. No marketing plan can be made to fit all types of customers and staying in all geographies. It is very important to identify the key customers which needs to be selected for the marketing plan and thus focusing the strategies around them.

Brand Equity: The role of the marketing department is to ensure they build a very strong image of the product in the minds of the customers. Only when the customers have a positive image for a product then only they will go ahead and buy the product and then leading to the increase of sales and profitability of the organization. They need to ensure that the positive benefits of the product are highlighted in context of the customers and as well as the society.

d)Key elements of marketing functions and interrelations with other functional units of organization

Success of the marketing function is not only a job of the marketing department however is very much dependent on how the other departments contribute with their role and responsibilities to make the marketing plan a success. From departments such as human resource, finance, sales, logistics, distribution etc. all have to contribute towards the success of the marketing function. Below are the major marketing functions.

Research:This is one of the most important function as with the help of this department the marketing strategies are formulated and this is the information store house for the organization. This department has to ensure that a complete and detailed research has been conducted on both current and the probable customers for the organization. Once the outcomes of the research are with the department then they can discuss on finalizing the best plan which will suit their targeted audience.

Strategy: After the research department comes the role of the strategy department who helps to formulate the strategies using the data collected by the research department. They need to ensure that the strategies are in line with the objectives of the organization and will help the company to achieve their goals. The strategies should also be attainable and not something which cannot be achieved. The focus should always remain on the needs and expectations of the end consumers.

Planning:Planning department is the one who pen down the various steps that needs to be undertaken for the execution of the strategy devised. They assign roles and duties to each department and also bring out the success parameters for each department for performance evaluation purpose as well. They have to deal with all the departments which are present in the organization.

Tactics:This is where the focus is on how the organization should achieve the short-term objectives. Once long-term strategies are formulated then comes the role to have short term tactics to be decided. Again, they have to be in line with the long-term strategies and also in line to the objectives of the company. For example, 20% extra over a product is a short term tactic to increase the demand of a product however this tactic cannot be stretched for a longet duration.

Above listed are the roles which the marketing team has to be perform in coordination with other departments. As without the other departments the marketing department cannot perform these functions. The one of important department which is linked with the marketing department is the finance department as they are the one who will define the budget and pass the budget for initiating the various activities involved or decided by the marketing department. There has to be a clear communication and discussion in between the both departments to ensure the functions are performed without hassle. Production department is another department which is linked with the marketing department as they are the one who will execute on the increase in demand forecasted by the marketing department after their marketing plan. Thus, any alteration in any product must be clearly communicated to the production department in advance thus to ensure the quality of the product is maintained and also enough time is given to them to ensure quality tests are conducted. The production department has also to work on to get the necessary raw materials are procured and enough people are staffed in their department to meet the increase in demand from the marketing department strategy (Pike, 2015).

Task2 Ways of using marketing mix for achievement of business objectives

a)Comparison of application of marketing mix in marketing planning process in different organizations

The marketing mix varies largely form different organizations and their workings. The use of marketing mix is also based on the various objectives and goals of the organization. There are various factors which influence the marketing mix and can be categorized as product, consumers, the market and the level of the production in the company. This tool is used to understand the marketing needs and revolves around 4P’s of the marketing i.e. product, place, promotion and price. This was later transformed into a more advanced version i.e. 7P’s which includes now people aspect along with processes and physical evidence.

The company has largely grown on their brand image over the years and the reason why McDonald has been also to reach this place as a big brand is that they have always kept customer in their focus and all of their marketing strategies using marketing mix are made with the central focus on customers. There are many competitors to McDonald’s in the current market however they are able to come up with strategies to overcome the competitions and give something different to their customers.

b)Different tactics applied by the organizations to achieve business objectives

Every organization has their own way of implementing or opting for a strategy. These are applied with keeping in mind the customer and the objectives of the organization. McDonald’s using very efficiently the 7P’s strategy along with other tactics to reach to their end goal.

• Which markets has to be targeted has to be ascertained
• Various market segments are then proposed
• Assessment is done basis various marketing segments is done
• Process map is created for each segment
• Market evaluation in term of attractiveness
• Further selection of the targeted market is taken
• Adopting a positional strategy and implementing it
• Response from the segment process is ascertained.

TASK 3 DEVELOPMENTS AND EVALUATION A BASIC MARKETING PLAN

a)Basic marketing plan for McDonald

The basic marketing plan for McDonald can be created by the below mentioned steps.

• McDonald has to prepare a plan with keeping the needs of their targeted audience and also the expectations of the consumers from their product, they have to conduct a research.
• McDonald should select which type of audience they want to target and then come up with a plan to execute. The research should be able to give them answers to what is the best segment that they need to go after
• The step next to that is then identifying which type of product will be able to cater to the needs of the target audience and thus the organization should also invest time to think whether or not they will be able to produce such a product.
• Evaluation of the research is very important as it gives a more confident feeling when going ahead with formulation of the strategies. After this step comes the part of cost allocation and the budget allocation to each department to be able to deliver to what is required from them.
• Then the best medium which will be used to reach their target market and audience has to be selected. It should be the one which reaches most of the target audience in best possible way and the one they can correlate to. It should also generate the need in the minds of the target audience.
• In the end the evaluation of the marketing plan is done to see where we can improve when futher extending the product in the same or other markets. (Dibb and Simkin, 2013).

Estimate the marketing plan and supervise the outcome to verify the efficiency of marketing plan

b) Rational marketing plan that strategically uses 7P’s to attain marketing objectives

The marketing mix is made up of various variables which are put together to deliver the product to the customers and also satisfy their needs (Wang, 2015). The plan of McDonald’s using the 7P’s of the marketing mix is given below:

Product: The product needs to be of a very good quality and should also be able to meet the needs of the customers. The product should be without any flaw and must be in line to the brand of the company. McDonalds need their customers to get a happy experience once they receive the product from them.

Promotion:The communication to the customers about the product should be done by using different means of promotions such as word of mouth, though print media, through offers and also social media.

Price:McDonalds pricing has to be considering the end user of the product and also should give a sense of satisfaction to the customer. The customer should always find value in buying the product from them.

Place:The geographic location of the outlet has to be in a place with maximum footfall such as shopping malls, cinemas, shopping complex and important highways. It should also have a home delivery feature to reach to its customer easily.

People: The role of the employees in making success of any product is indispensable. People from the store, admirative side, customer facing all have their own duties and role to fulfill to deliver to make a product successful.

Process: The method of the organization must be patron centric which meets the specific demands of the purchasers inside the maximum appropriate manner (Wilson, 2014).

Physical Environment: The surroundings have to be such that the clients experience at ease along with the deliverance of offerings with the aid of a expert educated staffing who carter to the needs of the customers in a more efficient way.

CONCLUSION

This study explains the various elements of the marketing essentials and their relationship with regards to the elements of an organization. The study stressed on the 7Ps of the marketing world and how the same are tested with the businesses around us or the successful businesses using this technique. The examination of the advertising and marketing mix is also mentioned in the paper.

REFERENCES

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