Assignment-1

Marketing Management

1. Why Marketing is important?

Marketing is a very important aspect in business since it contributes greatly to

the success of the organization. Production and distribution depend largely on
marketing. Many people think that sales and marketing are basically the same.
These two concepts are different in many aspects. Marketing covers advertising,
promotions, public relations, and sales. It is the process of introducing and
promoting the product or service into the market and encourages sales from the
buying public. Sales refer to the act of buying or the actual transaction of
customers purchasing the product or service.
Since the goal of marketing is to make the product or service widely known and
recognized to the market, marketers must be creative in their marketing
activities. In this competitive nature of many businesses, getting the product
noticed is not that easy.

Strategically, the business must be centered on the customers more than the
products. Although good and quality products are also essential, the buying
public still has their personal preferences. If you target more of their needs, they
will come back again and again and even bring along recruits. If you push more
on the product and disregard their wants and the benefits they can get, you will
lose your customers in no time. The sad thing is that getting them back is the
hardest part.
• Marketing Promotes Product Awareness to the Public
• Marketing Helps Boost Product Sales
• Marketing Builds Company Reputation
For example, McDonalds is known for its arch design which attracts people and
identifies the image as McDonalds. For some companies, building a reputation to
the public may take time but there are those who easily attract the people. With
an established name in the industry, a business continues to grow and expand
because more and more customers will purchase the products or take advantage
of the services from a reputable company.

1. What is marketing?
There are many different definitions of marketing. Consider some of the
following alternative definitions:

“The all-embracing function that links the business with customer needs
and wants in order to get the right product to the right place at the right
time”

“The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding

customer needs better than the competition”

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“The management process that identifies, anticipates and supplies
customer requirements efficiently and profitably”

“Marketing may be defined as a set of human activities directed at

facilitating and consummating exchanges”

Which definition is right? In short, they all are. They all try to embody the
essence of marketing:

• Marketing is about meeting the needs and wants of customers;

• Marketing is a business-wide function – it is not something that operates alone
from other business activities;
• Marketing is about understanding customers and finding ways to provide
products or services which customers demand

To help put things into context, you may find it helpful to often refer to the
following diagram which summarizes the key elements of marketing and their
relationships:

2. What are the basic concepts in marketing?

Customer value

In marketing, a customer value proposition (CVP) consists of the sum total of

benefits which a vendor promises a customer will receive in return for the
customer's associated payment (or other value-transfer).
A customer value proposition is a business or marketing statement that
describes why a customer should buy a product or use a service. It is specifically

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targeted towards potential customers rather than other constituent groups such
as employees, partners or suppliers. It is a clearly defined statement that is
designed to convince customers that one particular product or service will add
more value or better solve a problem than others in its’ competitive set

VALUE CHAIN

• Porter defines 'value' as "the amount buyers are willing to pay for what a
firm provides". The value chain was therefore designed to display total
value and consisted of the firm's value activities (defined below) and
its margin ("the difference between total value and the collective costs of
performing the value activities"). Thus, the generic value chain for a
single firm comprises three main elements: its primary activities, its
support activities and the margin. Primary activities are those involved in
the creation of the product, its sale and transfer to the buyer as well as
after-sales service. Support activities are those which support primary
activities and each other. Three of these - procurement, technology
development and human resource management - can be associated with
specific primary activities while the fourth, firm infrastructure, supports
the entire chain.

DEFINING A VALUE CHAIN

Diagnosis starts with definition. Starting with the generic value chain,
individual value activities must be identified for the particular firm within
its particular industry. Each of the main categories in the generic model
can be subdivided into discrete activities. For instance, Sales and
Marketing might be subdivided into marketing management, advertising,
sales force administration, sales force operations, technical literature,
promotion, etc. This process of subdivision can continue down to

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 increasingly narrow activities provided that they are discrete. This
disaggregation can be guided by three considerations. Activities should be
isolated if they have different economics, have a significant impact on
differentiation, or represent a significant proportion of cost.

Determining which activity lies within which category requires judgement.

In particular it will depend on the nature of the firm, its industry and its
source(s) of competitive advantage. Thus, order processing could be part
of outbound logistics or, if it is an important element of the way a firm
interacts with its buyers, it could be defined as marketing. One way or
another, however, everything a firm does should be captured and
identified. The specific value activity labels "are arbitrary and should be
chosen to provide the best insight into the business".

CONCEPT OF VALUE delivery network

Porter extends the value chain concept to what he defines as a "Value

System". This takes account of the fact that an individual firm's value chain is
inevitably "embedded" in a larger stream of activities. This suggests that
there are at least three additional value chains of which account must be
taken:

• Supplier Value Chains which create and deliver the essential inputs to the
firm's own chain
• Channel Value Chains which are the delivery mechanism(s) for the firm's
products on their way to the end buyer, customer or consumer
• Buyer's Value Chains which are the ultimate source of differentiation
because it is the product's role in this chain that determines buyer needs

Supply chain

• It is not a “one-way” chain, but a network of stages

• Consists of all stages involved in fulfilling customer demand
• Includes: Manufacturers, External Suppliers, Vendors, Transporters,
Warehouses, Retailers, Customers

Segmentation, positioning and Target Marketing

A marketer can rarely satisfy everyone in a market. Therefore, he starts by

dividing the market into segments. They identify and profile distinct groups of
buyers who might prefer or require product and service mixes by examining
demographic, psychographic and behavioral differences among buyers.

After identifying market segments, the marketer then decides which present the
greatest opportunities - which are its target markets. For each, the firm
develops a market offering that it positions in the minds of the target buyers as
delivering some central benefits.

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Exchange and Transactions

Marketing occurs when people decide to satisfy needs and wants through
exchange. Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired object from someone by
offering something in return. Exchange is only one of the many ways that people
can obtain a desired object. For example, hungry people could find food
by hunting, fishing or gathering fruit. They could beg for food or take food from
someone else; or they could offer money, another good, or a service in return of
food.

Whereas exchange is the core concept of marketing a transaction in turn is

marketing's unit of measurement. A transaction consists of a trade of values
between two parties: one party gives X to another party and gets Y in return. For
example, you pay Sears $350 for a television set. This is a classic monetary
transaction but not all transactions involve money. In a barter transaction you
might trade your old refrigerator in return for a neighbor's second hand
television set.

Transaction marketing is part of the larger idea of relationship marketing.

Beyond creating short-term transactions, marketers need to build long-term
relationships with valued customers, distributors, dealers, and suppliers

Needs, Want, and Demands

Needs are the basic human requirements, People need air, food, water, clothing,
and shelter to survive. People also have strong needs for recreation, education,
and entertainment. These needs become wants when they are directed to
specific objects that might satisfy the need. Demands are wants for specific
products backed by an ability to pay.

MARKET OFFERINGS

In the present era of fast changing market dynamics in marketing, where

everyone is trying its level best to capture either the existing market or creating
new markets through their innovative products.

Due to technological revolution the world has practically turned into Global
village. Multinationals have been able to develop products according to local
needs. Due to credible market research and customer needs they have been able
to create new markets. Within existing markets due to new innovative approach
they have increased the market base and also maintained their leadership
position.

Local industry has also been able to penetrate better to get share from
multinationals with quality products reinforced with better strategies and cost
effectiveness.

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Products VS Services

Products are the tangible entities which are offered in the market by
Organization to fulfill the needs, wants and demands of the customers. Products
are tangible products in the market which customers purchase from market to
satisfy needs or wants. Customers always view the product in the form of bundle
means the set of benefits customers get after purchasing the product. The
product bundle include complementary elements like warranty, information and
etc.

Services are intangible entities which are offered in the marketing by

Organization with product or separately. The objective of service remains similar
to product fulfilling wants or demands of customers.

Kotler definition of Service is

“ Any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially
intangible and does not result in the ownership of any thing”
According to American survey products failure rate is higher than service failure
rate that’s the reason we can see lots of services are being offered to customer
in the market in 20th century. Telecommunication, education and banking are
the most growing industries in services sector.

BRAND vs. BRAND EQUITY

Brand

A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business. A brand can

take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color combination or slogan.
The word brand began simply as a way to tell one person's cattle from another
by means of a hot iron stamp. A legally protected brand name is called a
trademark. The word brand has continued to evolve to encompass identity - it
affects the personality of a product, company or service.

Brand equity

Brand equity refers to the marketing effects or outcomes that accrue to a

product with its brand name compared with those that would accrue if the same
product did not have the brand name. And, at the root of these marketing effects
is consumers' knowledge. In other words, consumers' knowledge about a brand
makes manufacturers/advertisers respond differently or adopt appropriately
adept measures for the marketing of the brand. The study of brand equity is
increasingly popular as some marketing researchers have concluded that brands
are one of the most valuable assets that a company has. Brand equity is one of
the factors which can increase the financial value of a brand to the brand owner,
although not the only one.

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Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broadly recognized, widely-
implemented strategy for managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with
customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize,
automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but
also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall
goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the
company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the
costs of marketing and client service. Customer relationship management
denotes a company-wide business strategy embracing all client-facing
departments and even beyond. When an implementation is effective, people,
processes, and technology work in synergy to increase profitability, and reduce
operational costs.

Benefits

These tools have been shown to help companies attain these objectives:

* Streamlined sales and marketing processes

* Higher sales productivity

* Added cross-selling and up-selling

* Improved service, loyalty, and retention

* Increased call center efficiency

* Higher close rates

* Better profiling and targeting

* Reduced expenses

* Increased market share

* Higher overall profitability

* Marginal costing

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3. How Marketing has undergone changes overtime?
Or, What are the different marketing
philosophies/concepts/orientation?

Marketing Concepts

1.The selling concept

According to this concept the company’s entire focus is on selling and hence
making a lot of sales.The selling effort is backed by serious promotional activities
and aggressive advertising. The company does not bother about the market
demand, they just want to sell what they produce.

When is the selling concept adopted? This concept is practiced when the firm is
into the business making products which the consumers do not know much
about.We call these unsought goods.The consumers do not consider or think
about buying such products.A good example of such products is:Insurance
Policies

Important Fact: This is adopted when the firm faces something which we call
over capacity.

Limitations:

I do not believe in the selling concept as it is important for the firms to think
about the long term relations with the customers rather than making sales. In
the selling concept marketing begins after the product has been made.

Marketing should start with identifying the market needs, this means that
marketing is something that should begin before the product is made. Customer
satisfaction and long term profitable relations are more important.

2.The product and production concept

Product Concept:

According to this concept, people like products which are very good in terms of
performance and quality. The company aims at making a continuous effort
towards product improvement and innovation.

Limitations:

Here the firm may face problems when substitute products are available. It
happens many times that firms fail to predict the future take into account the
challenge of substitutes. For example: consumers may prefer airplanes rather
than trains or modern digital cameras instead of the non digital camera using
film.

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Production Concept:

The company following the production concept believes in the fact that it should
produce goods efficiently and try to bring down the prices so that products
become affordable.The firm undertakes mass production and makes an effort to
improve the distribution.

Important fact: This happens when the demand is more than the supply

Limitations:

The managers may become narrow in their thinking and forget about customer
satisfaction.Later they may realize that there is a need to redefine the marketing
objectives and plans.Also,the quality may become an issue if it begins to decline.

3.The Marketing concept

The marketing concept is concerned with first identifying the consumer needs
and then making products that give maximum customer satisfaction.

Marketing starts before the product,service or solution is ready and continues

even after the sale has been made.

The firm here aims to make products and provide services better than the
competitors.Here the company makes sincere efforts towards retaining the
customers and also attracting new ones.If the customers are satisfied with the
product they will buy it again and again and tell other people about it also.

If the product turns out to be better than what they had expected,the consumers
will be really impressed and this will prove to be very beneficial in the long
run.For Eg.Good Customer loyalty

Companies like Dell and Wal-mart have had had great success by following the
Marketing concept.

4.The Holistic Marketing Concept

Its based on development, design and implementation of marketing programs,

processes and activities that recognize their breadth and interdependencies. It
recognizes that “everything matters”in marketing and that a broad, integrated
perspective is often necessary.

4. Latest developments In marketing:

Societal Forces

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-Network information technology: It revolution has forced us into a new era of
business which is significantly different from the industrial revolution which solely
depended on mass production.

-Globalization:Transportaion,shipping and communication has allowed companies

to market in different countries.

-Deregulation: These days various governments are deregulating their economy

so that different industries can compete and flourish.

-Privatization: Countries are converting their Public sector units into private to
increase efficiency.

-Hightened Competition: Both domestic and foreign brands are competing for the
same shelf space.

-Industry Convergence: Companies are realizing that opportunities lie at the

intersection of two industries. So they are capitalizing on that.

-Consumer Resistance: A study has shown that consumers are resisting over
marketed products.

New Consumer capabilities

-Substantial increase in buying power: Consumers are click away from

comparing a product with its competitors. They even go for reverse auction.

-Greater variety of available goods and services: With Diversification great many
businesses are giving a full array of services. so the choices for customers are
plenty.

-Great amount of Information: Access to internet, newspapers has enabled

customers with high degree of choices to choose from.

-Amplified voice to influence peer and public opinion: These days social
networking sites and blogs affect the decision making process of consumers to a
greater extent.
5. Problems and challenges faced by marketers:

• Having the right Marketing Mix

• Understanding the Customer Wants and Demands.
• Advertising and Budgetary Allocations.
• Pricing Decisions.
• Challenges of Distribution Channels.

The dramatic changes in the global marketing environment that are opening up
new opportunities as well as ways of operating in these markets have
implications for how managers approach development in marketing strategy. In

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particular they imply the need to adopt a radically new perspective to strategy
development in a rapidly globalizing highly competitive and technology.

During the last decade, the developments of new technologies all over the world
and growing globalization of countries economic have produced the fastest
changes ever. The fashion industry in Ghana, especially, the clothing sub sector
(which is the focus of this study) has not been on all organizations. In recent
years, protectionism has given way to globalization. With the changes Ghanaian
clothing sector of the fashion industry has had to compete with imports from low
wage countries. Retailers, unencumbered by protectionism, have also seized on
the opportunity, often choosing to go directly to off shore manufactures. A
retailer become larger and more globally connected, they continue to build global
brands, marketed around the world. In doing so, they eliminate many Ghanaian
clothing companies from their supply chain. The result has been major market
share declines and job looses in the industry. The Ghanaian clothing sector of the
fashion industry faces many challenges. The rise of low cost goods from Asia, a
slow down in consumer spending difficulty in accessing capital, lack of innovation
from entrepreneurs, relatively high prices of products due to high unit cost, poor
distribution channels and inability to promote local brands

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