Key Roles and Responsibilities of Marketing

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P1 Key Roles and Responsibilities of Marketing Function

Marketing plays a key role in promoting and establishing the business and marketing department is the key to good sales and marketing. It is the way through which people are made aware of the new product and services in the market in such a way that people are interested in it and desires to acquire it. Some key roles and responsibilities are described below.

Expand market: Marketers uses various communication tools, for instance, advertising, promotion, event marketing, sales etc. to promote its products and services (Kotler, 2015). Emerging sources of marketing have made it more interactive. Marks and Spencer emphasizes to provide common message through advertisement in TV, print media and other social media campaign. It also participates in various events and shows which helps in market expansion, increasing brand value and enhancing revenue.

Meeting customers need and demand: Marketers needs to identify the consumer needs and accordingly implement the marketing strategies. The needs of the customers are influenced by the culture, belief, personality, lifestyle etc. Marks and Spencer has used a selective targeting strategy to make its products attractive to the targeted segment. Its proper positioning has also helped in positioning the brand in the minds of the consumers. It has always tried to highlight the key benefits of its products and services which create a sense of pride and satisfaction among consumers and persuade them to buy its products.

Pricing products: Price plays a crucial role in marketing a product or services. Marketer needs to undertake proper market research and analyse target market in order to adapt right price for its product. A little variation in the price may increase the demand for competitor’s product. Marks and Spencer follows competitive pricing strategy. It has its own house brands so it has priced it from medium to higher category because of it premium quality. It also follows dynamic strategy during seasonal times to offer huge discount and other offers to its customers.

Market planning: Market is a dynamic place which keeps on changing so marketing manager needs to create a marketing plan explaining the key marketing elements and how it will be implemented in attaining business objectives (VERDOY ALVARO, 2013). Marks and Spencer keeps on evaluating its marketing plan to make the relevant changes with the changing conditions, to be competitive on every step and take competitive advantage over its competitors.

Being creative and innovative: Marketing department is known for its innovation whether it is for launching new product or for any promotional activity. It needs to come up with innovative ways to position its products into the mind of consumers. Marks and Spencer has a wide range of product portfolio for all age group which are distinguished from its competitors based on its designs and appearance. It also tries to be innovative in its promotion strategy to grab customer attention which will increase its revenue and profitability.

Customer support services: The success of marketing is measured through the satisfaction level of its customers, so it is the important responsibility of the marketing function to take care of its customers. It needs to provide customer support services such as customer grievance handling, after sales service, consumer information etc. Marks and Spencer has a structured customer support system. It has its blog, presence over other social networking sites where it can handle its customer’s complaints. This will help in getting and retaining the customers.

Keeping up with the competition: Marketing department needs to carry out market research on a regular basis to identify emerging changes in the environment and look for the solution for the same (Yu, Ramanathan and Nath, 2017). This will help in overcoming the threats that may hamper the business operation. Marks and Spencer's research team continuously works on analysing the market in order to identify the key market threats in terms of competition, technological change, consumer needs and preferences etc. so that a proper plan of action can be formulated to tackle with the same.

P2 Interrelationship of Marketing with other Functional Departments of the Organization

An important task an organization faces while developing a business plan is to coordinate and integrate plans with other functional departments to achieve overall business objectives. Marketing function cannot work alone to achieve success, it is the combine effort of all the departments and marketing is the centre point of this. Marks and Spencer has several functional units which forms a direct relationship with the marketing department which has been shown below.

Marketing and Finance: Every plan has a finance dimension. Money is the basic factor in every organization. Finance department provides funds to carry out the marketing plans based on projected financial statements, it also provides helpful information about the pricing of the product as per customer expectation (Friesner Tim, 2014). Apart from this, the development of plan involves the complete analysis of cash flow, capital requirement and other financial policies which requires marketing information. In big organization like Marks and Spencer, finance department provides forecasted profit and loss statement and cash flow statement for short term and long term which helps in forming financial and marketing policies.

Marketing and Human Resource: The HR department always tries to provide personnel that will help in increasing the productivity of the organization. HR function looks for recruitment, selection, training and development of the employees as per the organizations need. Marketing department needs to accompany HR department in formulating job description, designing training programs and creating incentive system. Marks and Spencer has efficient HR team which helps in recruiting required number of personnel with relevant expertise based on the market research done by the marketing team. So in order to have a strong team, marketing department needs to maintain a good relationship with the HR department.

Marketing and Research and Development: The major link between marketing and R&D revolves around the new product development. The need of potential customers is the central of any new research and development which is based on the customer insights provided by the marketing department (Chisholm, 2017). R&D department works on the innovative ideas, product design which can benefit in attracting target market segment. Marks and Spencer works in coordination with its R&D department to meet the needs of its customers by creating and innovation products which can proved to be a differentiating factor from its competitors and grab new opportunities.

Marketing and Production: Marketing department gathers a complete information about the customer needs and expectation and sends this information to the production department in order to produce what people want with the expected price. Production department determines the number and types of products that can be produced with specific design. Marketing department also spots the likes and dislikes of the people about the product which helps production department to improve the quality of the product. Marks and Spencer has a structured production system which is flexible enough to change its production process as per the customer requirement. It also maintains a good relationship with marketing department for working efficiently.

Marketing and Procurement: Marketing research regarding customer acceptance of the new products is the major input for procurement planning process such as the type of raw material required and the number of suppliers available. Sometimes companies required to modify the material to cope up with the lack of availability of resources or replace it with other easily available resources. The procurement team of Marks and Spencer is effectively working to increase its connection with the suppliers to meet up with the needs of raw material on time in required quantity. Marketing team requires confirmation from the procurement team on the basis of which product is produced.

Marketing and Information Technology: Information technology is the important part of the organization. IT and marketing is having a strong relationship with each other, as a marketer needs to understand the customer, it requires companies to invest more money in IT department. For marketing, information technology would be of great importance such as database development, customer relationship management, data analysis, website development and e-commerce, product enhancement etc. which requires implementation of the latest technologies in the organization (Swink and Schoenherr, 2015). In Marks and Spencer, the latest technologies have been successfully adopted to improve its productivity and efficiency. Its marketing team knows everything about its customer and the way it interacts with its products and services. It has digitalized and automatized it business operations to meet with the need of its customers.

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P3 Comparative Analysis of Marketing mix

Every organization has his own marketing plan that describes the strategies of its company in near future or within a year, month or quarter (Kayabasi, A. and Mtetwa, T., 2016). The plan contain completed detail related to company position in the market, target customers, timeline when the work will be completed and business marketing strategies. Marks and Spencer marketing plan make use of various marketing mix in order to achieve the objectives of company. Marketing mix is a tool of marketing that is used by marketer to increase sells or attract large number of customers. The marketing mix used by Marks and Spencer in marketing plan are as follows:

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P4 Marketing Plan

Executive Summary

Marks and Spencer is planning to introduce organic product to its product line as the customer nowadays are more concerned about their health. The company has done pestle and swot analysis of the product before launching it into the market. The marketing plan of Marks and Spencer includes various marketing tools in order to increase its sells and profit margin of the company.

Company background: Marks and Spencer is a British company that operates is business around various nation and it is a retail industry that deals in high quality clothing, home and food product. It was founded in year 1884 in Leeds, united kingdom since 136 years by Michael Marks. It deals in various brand such as M&S collection, M&S Energy, Blue Harbour, Rosie etc. and there are more than 1000 store across 50 countries.

Aim: To launch a new product within the markets of UK.

Objectives:

• To generate customer awareness related to new product.
• To increase the market share by 18%.

Pestle Analysis: The company has analysis and evaluate its external environmental factor that will affect in launching of new product.

Political factor: Marks and Spencer has undertaken political factor while launching the new product. The company has make all plan and policy as per the government policy, had followed all rules related to manufacturing of products etc. Due to stable policy of the government the company can easily expand its market share of new product.

Economical: Cost of production of organic product is high so it directly increases the cost of the product on this basis the company target medium and high class people. On the basis of economical factor the company has tried to satisfy the needs of the young customer by selling organic product online.

Social factor: Marks and Spencer by considering social is able to attract large customer as they are more educated and aware that quality matter a lot, and they prefer to pay if the product value is as per the price of the product. So, Marks Spencer launching organic food that is good for the health and thus, satisfy the needs of the customers in the most effective way.

Technology factor: Marks and Spencer also consider technology factor in executing its marketing plan as it make effectively utilization of present technique. The company also upgrade its self as per the changes in the market it develops new technique to produce organic food in order to minimize cost.

Swot analysis

7P's of Marketing: The company has use various tools of marketing to sell the new launch product or organic foods. The tools used by company are as follows :

Product: The company is able to satisfy the needs of the customer in the best possible manner by launching organic foods in its product line.

Price: The company has to set such price that value their product and the consumer are willing to pay for it easily.

Place: The company has made separate section for organic food and the stores are also located in high street where consumer prefers more organic food.

Promotion: Marks and Spencer can easily promote its organic product due to its brand image and it can also make use of social sites.

People: The company has millions of customer and large number of employee with high knowledge and skill thus it helps the company in launching of new product.

Physical distribution: Marks and Spencer has user -friendly website and the layout of the store is also simple and attractive.

Process: As the company has easy process for ordering product online because of user-friendly website that gives conveyance to its customer in online shopping.

STP: The company has divided the market into various category and thus on the basis of its target certain groups of people and then the company has position its self in t

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