Introduction
Marketing is define as the process in which product is made with the aim of satisfying the needs, wants and wishes of a customer. It includes adoption of marketing mix such as product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidences. These are the factors that determines a plan and a layout that can be effectively implemented by providing the appropriate products for the targeted segment of the customers along with the promotional strategies for promoting these products among the potential customers so that they can accomplish their goals of increasing the sales of their product and services. This is the major goal for every organisation as it they want to retain in a market and provide a strong competition to other competitors who are providing similar kinds of products by creating a differentiated products which can help them to get a recognition in the market. Marketing plays an effe3ctive role fro the promotion of the product in the right way and also providing certain basic market plans which includes the marketing research , forming the financial budget required for various activities (Mishra and Modi, 2016).
Task 1
1. Key roles and responsibilities of marketing functions
There are many key roles and responsibilities of marketing functions in TK-MAX which are discussed as follows:
Strategy
The member who is senior in the marketing department of TK-MAX takes the responsibility for strategy formation and objectives. The strategy can be related to methods for increasing marketing share in a defined market which includes certain activities like entering into a new sect or, opening up a new marketing channel for distribution like internet for reaching a wider range of geographical market .These strategy are the basic planned series of activities which helps the company to achieve the desired goal and provide a suitable direction for it. These strategies help to reduce the efforts and cost required for every set of procedures for performing certain task which is very important aspect for a successful plan TK-Max has certain plans and strategies regarding their products so that it can create impactful promotion of their products among the potential customers in a market and help to regain new customers. Functions of marketing make various strategies to make sure that each activity is performed effectively and smoothly and tries to plan in such ad way that it faces less obstacles (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014).
Market Research
Market research is considered to be a major responsibilities for department of marketing in TK-MAX. With the help of research a company is able to identify all the market opportunities and can have a better understanding of customer's requirement. It also helps to analysis certain aspect of competitors such as their strength, weakness so that they can take appropriate actions related to it and can make an effective strategies to compete with them in a particular market .These researches are carried out through studying industrial report. Market research is very important as it provides the company an idea of what is the demand for the particular products and services they will sell in the market, what is the psychological perceptions of the customers regarding them, what are the factors which affects their choices and how organisation can improve the chance of getting the priority among others in them mindset of every buyer of the segment which has been chosen. Market research studies the deep aspects which are ignored by the company but can affect them in many ways such as their sales.
Product development
Department of marketing works with different teams which are involved in product development and are appointed externally and internally. This department has the responsibility to analyse sales of products and services of TK-MAX and provides identification of gaps in the range of all services which are provided by company(Sheth and Sisodia, 2015). development of product is very necessary to retain the customers as the requirement of the customers gets change according to the changes in the surrounding which leads to differences in the kind of demands for certain products, therefore to cope up with the changes one has to modify the products is that it can fulfil the changes in demands. Also new features attracts many other customer and helps to get a hold to those customers. These development can be done in the concept of the product such as diverting the product into an organic criteria, changing the appearance of the product along with the variation in the strategy of pricing like providing discounts, giving some of on price for a certain period.
Sales Support
It includes the process of cooperation between various departments of sales and marketing which enhances their performance and also speed up an important aspect which is business growth. They provide sales team a lead of high quality by providing different advertisements that features mechanism for reply. It also helps in preparation of presentations for the sales department and supply them various stocks of materials for promotion. Sales Support provide a major impact on the sales of the product as it can help the company to increase the sale of the products and services of the companies, therefore company hires the sales team which includes sales person who has the responsibility for increasing the selling quantity. The large bulk selling can lead to economies of scale which means then the investment required for producing such large bulks minimises, which ultimately leads to the profit earning for the company.
2. Key roles and responsibilities of marketing related to TK MAX
Marketing has a great significance and have certain key roles as well as responsibilities which are discussed below.
Planning
Marketing is helpful in planning as management is provided various kind of information related to changes or trends in market, it helps to analyse competition and demand in particular market which helps TK-MAX to create certain planning against these aspects which will have tremendous effect on the production of various services. Planning decreases the efforts and time therefore making the execution easy of certain plan into real implementation so that it can achieve the targets very easily. With the effective planning company is able to control all the marketing activities in an efficient manner which provide various benefits at the end. There are certain processes in a planning which includes conducting a proper analysis regarding every aspects such as environment, customers, market etc, then deciding various strategies and how their implementation has to be performed and allotting different roles to the members of the sales team. An effective planning can lead to successful marketing of the products and services (Jindal, Chintagunta and Dhar, 2018).
Profit making
With the proper implementation of different aspects of marketing one can generate lots of revenue which would help to collect huge profit sharing in the market, which is possible only through selling of greater quantity of products or services to consumers. It helps to earn profit through aspects such as tie creation, place and possession utilities. Profit Making is the necessary requirement of every company which helps to sustain it in the market and can compete well with their competitors. Profit earned provides various benefits to the company which results in providing many advantages to the employees which provide a kind a satisfaction and motivation to work and provide more efficiency in the work. Profit can also opens various ways of investing into other programs which can provide many advantages to the company. Also helps to make it financially strong for any future crisis. Many strategies are adopted by the company to increase the profitability from the market itself.
Facilitating Distribution
Department of marketing provides certain information regarding appropriate quantity time and mode of transportation for the process of delivery of services and goods at numerous places. It also provides information which is reliable for better distribution of final goods. It analyses various distributing channel with the minimum cost required for better distribution aspects(Kozlenkova and et.al., 2015).
3.Key roles and responsibilities of marketing regarding the context of marketing environment.
In today's era of marketing environment the scenario of marketing is very tough. As consumers are very much aware about their needs and requirements, they have become selective and knowledgeable regarding every product and services; at the same time they wanted to spend low on the selective product. Decision making is mainly base on word of mouth, where advertising also plays an important role in the process of making decisions.
There are certain responsibilities of marketing in relation with marketing environment which are as follows
Competition
Every product and related brand is affected by the presence of competition in a market. There are numerous brands and products which creates an atmosphere of tough competition in a market. Marketing department of TK-MAX helps to create their own USP which is a break even point for them to compete in a particular market. Competition is a potential threat to every company as there are many other organisation which can bring the similar concepts in the market which can affect in many ways such a decreasing their sales by attracting more customers towards them through various strategies. But it also provides various opportunities to the company to develop themselves in such a way that can give a strong competition to others which will make them strong in a positive perspectives (Pavlou and Stewart, 2015).
Word of mouth
Due to the presence of internet in this technologically advanced environment , consumers are aware of each ad every product with a depth knowledge before entering into the store. As every consumer has their own perception regarding a product , then word of mouth comes to rescue for promoting a particular product as consumer prefer to listen an experienced customer who has already used it. It creates a bond of trust with each other and their view changes in favour or against company's product or services(Slater, 2015). It helps to promote the product on the basis of personal experience and it works very effectively for promoting a particular brand. It is the most trustable form of advertising as it surely attracts customers strongly.
Consumer decision making
With the advancement in consumer's behaviour nowadays , marketing influences them a lot. Today's customer prefer to buy those products which are promoted more as compared to other one which are available in a market. Department of marketing performs enough research on the mentality of target customers regarding their product and plans strategies accordingly.
Deciding niche markets
Marketing also helps to provide decision making process for deciding niche market for their product so that they can have better production and sales as well. Niche marketing is the very old technique of conducting marketing for the product and services. It can lead to target a particular segment of customers and works on their preferred choices and produces products and services accordingly.
4. significance of interrelationships between Marketing & other functional units of an organisation
a)Customer Service provision
Marketing is very much integrated to the customer services. Customer is a central driver as customer satisfaction and the exchange process is given priority in the marketing Function (Tomczak, Reinecke and Kuss, 2018). To make sure that the customers of TK Max are satisfied or not, the whole function of customer service of the company is revolved around the series of activities which are designed to make sure.
- b) Human Resources
The recruitment, selection, training& Development of employees belongs to the functions of HRM of TK Max. Other functions are like well-being, motivation, health& safety and performance of employees are the responsibilities of HRM. The HRM of TK Max is helping the employees of the organisation to scoping out of jobs, personal profile, and job description. HR of the company helps to score and access the application forms and organise interviews.
c)Production/Operation/Logistics
The marketing department of TK Max works with the cooperation of the functions of production,logistics and operations within the business. Warehousing, packaging, labelling and distribution is included in the operations. In extent, production and logistics is also included in the operations (Krush, Sohi and Saini, 2015).Where the goods are produce or made is Production and when the goods are transferred to the warehousing or godowns to the consumer in most efficient manner. Now various technologies are developed for logistics.
d)Finance Department
The marketing department has to work closely with Finance department. TK Max needs Adequate budget to meets the needs of research, promotion and distribution. The whole organisation is dependent on finance department. No work can be started without finance. The sales volume and building market share of TK Max is concentrated by Marketing manager, while cash flows and covering cost and paying back of investment as soon as possible is in the concentration of finance department.
5. evaluate the key elements of marketing functions
Market research, product development, finance management, communication, distribution, selling, planning and promotion are the key elements of marketing function.
a)Research
Market research is the first thing TK Max do before launching of the products (Johanson, and Mattsson, 2015). What the customer wants is the first thing to know, and TK Max has build nice goodwill in the market. Marketing research is very important as it determine what will be the best medium, and what positioning need to be archived to target.
b)Planning
Sales forecasting, financial planning,communication system are involves Marketing Planning. Many plans has developed to achieve the targets of the TK Max company. What the company wants to achieve is only be done by the planning.
c)Product Development
In marketing plan the concept of the product of TK Max is to find out the right product of the targeted market. The product which is manufactured should be designed according to the needs of the customer (Harper, 2015). The packaging, labelling of the product has direct influence on the mind of the customer, this is the first impression on the mind of the customer.
d)Price
The most important key factor of marketing is Pricing of product. TK Max company is preparing something in return to its customer in particular price of product. The willingness of customer to pay predetermined price for specific product is very important for company. The price of the product should not be very low that company is going in loss and it should not too high that customer is moving to substitutes.
Task 2
1. Different ways to marketing mix to marketing planning process.
Marketing mix consist of 4 P's in product marketing which are product, price, place, promotion and in service marketing there are 3 more P's along with product, price , place and promotion which are people, process and physical evidences(Ganguly, Das and Farr, 2017). Every marketing mix has some role which makes the marketing activity more effective but iti s different in the aspect of product and services. Services are intangible objects which cannot be seen therefore they are provided an appearance through people, process and physical evidences. These are the marketing mix which plays an essential role in the market planning process which is discussed below:
Clean mix creation
All the components of marketing mix should be compatible to others, such as pricing strategy should be inter related to kind of product and services provided by TK-MAX, also promotions should be done accordingly with place where the product is to be delivered. They should be intrinsically linked which facilitates the marketing plan which helps to implement it successfully.
Product Development
Product development is very essential for the growth aspect as designing a product which is already existing, there can be adoption of numerous ideas which can come for improving particular product. Then, pricing, place and promotion should be also amended accordingly. These factors affects every product therefore their implementation should be done in accordance to modification done on product(Hitesh Bhasin, 2017).
Increasing portfolio of the product
Whenever there is a need to increase the depth of products or product line and also its length then some changes are too be done which are very minor which automatically changes its marketing mix also. Resulting in altering all the factors of marketing mix and features associated with it which enlarges the product portfolio.
Differentiation
When marketing mix of a competitor is analysed, there comes many ideas regarding differentiation of TK-MAX offerings from them. They might have poor policies of promotion here by analysing company can make its promotion much better and more innovative. Analysing every strategy can lead to creation of much better aspects of marketing mix which leads to give a strong competition to the competitors available in market(Wirtz, Tuzovic and Kuppelwieser, 2014).
2.Different tactics applied by TK-MAX
Marketing tactics are those which defines what business performs in the short interval of time, they help to provide response to various threats and opportunities which are generated while planning some strategies. Following are the tactics which are applied by TK-MAX for the accomplishment of its objectives.
Product or services
This is the main component of marketing tactics which is applied by every company for preparation of any strategy , it includes what kind of of product or services company will offer , what will be the branding , packaging and development for the existing product, what different features and benefits can be given to consumers, also what are the different unique selling points (Helm and Gritsch, 2014).
Pricing
Pricing plays an immense role in the marketing tactics as pricing of the product or services helps the one to attract consumers, or to enter in a new market and also providing competition to available competitors. It also facilitate in maximising profit earned from the selling of particular products or services.
Place
It refers to all kind of channels and number of locations selected for the distribution of product or service. TK-MAX has opened their stores around the city and want to expand more while providing home delivery services for the groceries ad other products. According to the place company can decide how to position their product in the provided market place.
Promotion
Without promoting tactics consumer would not be able to know about the product or services one is offering. Through promotion consumers gets aware for the product whether it is suitable for satisfying their needs, desire and wishes(augum and Grande, 2017).
Task 3
Basic Marketing Plan
Following are the basic stages for a marketing plan:
Market Overview
One should begin its plan by conducting a comprehensive overview of local market's condition. One should define the market which is been targeted with respect to demographics, psycho graphics and behaviourists aspects.
Company Overview
Types of products and services which ought to be offered are decided and their respective development should be conducted. The overview of the company decides what types of product or services they are providing , how they will satisfy customer's satisfaction and details related to it are provided to the potential customers. Next step is to identify the size of the market and their characteristics such as demographics and geographic should also be determinability of competitors should be acknowledged which would help to make strategies for competition.
Marketing Budget
It includes framework of financial aspect which is made to provide a budget that regulates all expenses involved in implementing the whole marketing plan (Hanssens, D. M. and et.al., 2014).
Detailed coherent evidence based marketing plan
Marketing tactics
Marketing tactics includes the following aspects
Service performance
Increase in the service performance as compared to last year performance. Introducing new concept of service delivery and also providing training sessions for making service quality better.
No. of cities covered
To expand 20 stores and opening up in more than 15 cities which can be implemented in following year.
Congestion of the network
Collaborating with other sources for increasing the congestion of the network by 20 percent.
Financial Budget
Strategic marketing plan that applies 7P's
Strategic marketing plan that applies 7 P's are
Product
What type of product and service is to be offered which is different from other competitors and successfully satisfies the needs and wants of a customer and also helps to generate profit.
Price
In pricing aspect company has to decide the pricing policy of the product or service whether it wants to keep high or low price according to the market situation.
Place
It includes which geographical areas are to be covered for their company whether they want to be in a particular region or want to expand in every city.
Process
Process includes what type of processing will the company follows whether they want to sectioned their store for different departments or want to operate it as a whole.
People
It lead to decide what will be the style of service delivery, how they will tackle their customer.
Physical Evidence
It shows various aspect related to appearance of the store and the employees, how they will represent themselves, what type of ambience would be there.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that Marketing is an important aspect of a company which helps in various aspects and are linked to different functional department to provide desired result and maintaining the performance level as well. Also the elements of marketing mix such as product, place, price and promotions in the product and there are three more P's in services which are people, process and physical evidences. These help the company to earn a great profit and satisfy the need and requirements of the customer. The basic marketing plan helps to make an established plan for a successful market implementation. There has been a deep discussion of the various marketing tactics which helps to implement the strategy very well and also provide a broader view for the implementation of plans in a manner which can help the company to sustain in the market.
References
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