Logic of Marketing from Contextual and Relativist Perceptions - Assignment Example

Topic (Assignment 1) Student: Bharan Sequeira Student ID: XXXXXX Lecturer: Dr Stephen Cahoon Subject: Introduction to Services Marketing Course: Bachelor of Business (Maritime and Logistics Management) Due Date: Word Count: 2482 Abstract Marketing is as old as business or commerce is. But it was during last century only that it emerged as a well defined stream which also started supporting the business through its proven scientific acumen. Though the basic under pinning of the subject remains universally same yet it has got tremendous perspectives. Moreover it is very situational and hence can be said to be specific to a context. With advent of service led economy, the complexity of choice and expectations has gone up tremendously. The pressure for accountability is also accordingly rising. In such scenario companies should take a holistic look at the marketing management rather than confining it just to advertisement and sales. The paper is an endeavour in this sense that it takes a stand to detach the elementary logic of Marketing from contextual and relativist perceptions which are myopic in nature. Table of contents Abstract 1 Table of contents 2 Introduction 3 Question One 3 Question Two 6 References 10 Introduction Gone are the days when customers always use to be at the receiving end and had to accept whatever was offered from the manufacturers. Down the time line the scenario has drastically changed. Especially with the advent of service led economic state of affairs has put customer at the centre of focus. Now whether it is a product or service, it must be developed, marketed and sustained the way customers want. Companies do no more perceive the selling process as just a transaction. Rather they consider each and every transaction as an opportunity for getting into a long term relationship with the customer. This assignment endeavors to highlights the marketing aspect beyond mere advertising and sales. It will also discuss marketing plan keeping customer at the centre stage. Question One Long back Kotler (1972, p.52), put forward his perspective of marketing as “Marketing management seeks to determine the settings of the company’s marketing decision variables that will maximize the company’s objective(s) in the light of the expected behavior of non-controllable demand variables.” It can be inferred from the above perspective that marketing is an activity which is strictly governed by the items being marketed. But the bone of contention is whether marketing is mere an economic transaction or is it more than that. Bartels (1970, p.253) attempted more holistic perspective of marketing in his legendry, “The General Theory of Marketing” and put forward three conclusions, which are “1) Management behaviour, incorporating both economics and social technology, is an ultimate focus of marketing theory; (2) that the roots of marketing theory are in the cultural context of society; and (3) that the structure of a theory includes components which reflect, among other things, the viewpoint of the particular theorist.”  With the advent of the relationship marketing perspective, it has become very evident that the economic exchange or sales is just a small part of the complete marketing continuum. There has been sea change in the outlook of marketing management over time (Kotler, 2007). It is no more just the sales or mere advertising. This shift in change become more important while considering marketing of services which by virtue of its nature is more customer centric (Zeithaml, 2006). Marketing starts well before inception of idea and continues even after the product is sold. Thus the complete process of pre and post sale falls under arena of marketing management only. There is huge planning being associated with it. Then come the aspect of demand and supply management. Then come actual sales and associated promotion. Afterward comes post sale service. Now a day marketing managers even consider product disposal as part of marketing cycle. It will not be wrong to say that all the marketing efforts should be customer centric. Day (2004) explicitly says that “Dominant logic depends on what we mean by marketing but to be successful, marketers have to be customer cantered and market driven.” Thus a holistic view of marketing is captured in establishing relationship with customer right before inception of idea till disposal of the same after use. Marketing begins with market research which is a revealing process in which marketers get to know about the needs and wants of consumers. Services provided to customers after the purchase also are an important part of marketing. All of these enterprises -- production, advertising, transportation, processing, packaging, and selling -- are included in the marketing process. The marketing process must also add "utility" to the products consumers want. Utility is the use or satisfaction a person gets from a product (Boone 2005). The significance of time and place utility is prominently considerable in case of firms engaged in international marketing (Perreault, 2005). Going further, marketing in order to perform adequately must provide consumers with prospects to purchase the products and services they need (Quester, 2004). The marketing process should also encompass few important functions. The functions are: a) Buying: Customer or consumer must have the opportunity to buy products or services that they want. b) Selling: Services provider or the manufacturers must have a free market to sell products and services to consumers. c) Financing: There should be financial institutions like banks which must provide money for the manufacturing and marketing of products and services. d) Storage: Products specially the perishable ones must be stored and protected until they are needed. This function does not hold good for services as they cannot be inventoried. e) Transportation: Products need to be physically placed or moved to the locations where consumers can buy them. The proximity of consumer and service provision is utmost important. f) Processing: Processing must turn a raw product into consumables. g) Risk-Taking: There should be means to cover the risk so that manufacturers and service providers are protected from loss due to unforeseen reasons. h) Market Information: This is the most important function as the information is the most valuable resource in today’s world. Information must be available through different means regarding the market as well as the ambience including the customer. i) Grading and Standardizing: There should be proper grading as per quality norms. Question Two One of the most strategic parts of business operation is marketing. This phenomenon has taken a very strategic outlook and has been undertaken by the industrial and service sector as well versed and conceptualized procedure of Marketing Planning. This strategic process serve as bridge between the fore end and back end of any company. Thus a company gets connected with the target customer starting from the inception of the idea of any product or services till the post use disposal of the same (Bulding, 2005). But while executing all this, one should keep in mind, the aspect of quality, especially if it is services marketing. Figure 1: Overview of Marketing Planning (Adapted from American Marketing Association Monthly bulletin, March 2007) Marketing planning process reviews all the necessary issues like demand, supply, target market, potential, risks, threats, opportunities etc. It is a top down dis-segregation approach and hence it is must that superior management reassess “apples and apples” and not “apples and oranges” (Pyane, 2005). Many a times, in companies, demand teams thinks and expresses in different way about products than supply teams do. At the same time financial teams often spotlight on mere financial numbers without any product distinctions. A method to bridge this communication gap and differences among various teams is to generate demand and supply tactics at a merchandise family level. This can then be further rolled up to the whole business portfolio. Aggregation must be understood by senior executives in order to predict future state of the business (Thompson 2006). Thus the sequence is: Decide how the data should be amassed. In Management Business Review (MBR), the data should typically be summarized into groups at product family level. It should be kept in mind that the number at product family level should not exceed ten in number. Sales and Marketing team then should project future potential. Executive management team should validate as well as fine tune the projections and should fix the target to be achieved. Following is a list of the monthly data most commonly gathered (Richard, 2008): a) Supply data: This should be collected for production of past two years and must also be forecasted for nest two years. Similarly for actual procurement of final product in last two years as well as planned purchases over the next two years. Data for capacity, laod and other relevant resources must also be gathered. b) Financial data: Revenue data for last two years and corresponding revenue projections for the next two years. Similar data for actual cost must also be gathered. Deviation form budget or planning must be represented with appropriate remarks and suitable measures taken. This is very must essential for validation of financial mechanism existing in the marketing outfit of the company. The financial data is prepared in order to permit the financial organization to authenticate that the information offered represents a true financial account of the existing Demand and Supply arrangement. c) Product Development data: This deals with the new product development and hence taps the potential for new business or new markets. The data must have existing status of the new products which are likely to be introduced in coming two years. It should also highlight the deviation in likely launch dates, resource requirement, pricing options etc. Then it should incorporate the likely demand of the new launch along with the assumptions. a) Performance Measurement data: The Marketing Planning process requires review of a “balanced scorecard”. Emphasis to evaluate the goal achievement is on four parameters namely customer perspective, internal-business processes, learning and growth and financials. Being selectively focused it peculates down the hierarchy of any organisation. This also makes it integrative in nature across various programs in an organisation. Being customer focused is its additional advantage that makes it popular among all organisations be it service oriented or manufacturing based. A marketer never works in isolation. Though working within the organization, a marketer keeps interacting with very many external factors as well as internal factors which cast effect on market performance. As far as the external environment is concerned, it signifies those factors which affect the organisation from outside and falls outside the organizational boundaries. The internal factors falls within the organisational boundary and somewhat is an outcome of organisational policies. Factors like economic, legal, political, societal, competition, customers/suppliers, and technology and many more constitute external environment. By virtue of being associated with tremendous opportunity, makes the external factors relatively difficult to manage. Though there are many leading and trailing signals that can be used as guide in order to tackle external factors. Thus a continuous factor scanning is must for that. Internal factors are part of the organisation and the firm has control on such factors to an extent. The factors like organisational culture, performance management, incentive schemes, organisational discipline, and grievance addressal constitute internal environment. Marketers are required to put forward strategies to align internal factors in accordance with organisational performance. As far as markets are concern, performance management has the same significance as it is applied elsewhere. The aim of performance management is clear-cut and is concerned with capacity, resources and manpower management in order to achieve the marketing goal. Considering the ever-changing nature of any project it is not an easy task. However, achieving efficient performance management is not an easy job. Performance management controls budget and schedule of any markets by monitoring, measuring, and managing performance. It is also concerned with the monitoring, measurement and management of the project’s scope, quality, owner satisfaction, customer satisfaction. The prerequisite for a proper implementation of marketing plan is the recognition of key performance indicators (KPIs). These indicators are then continuously monitored and tried to be improved. The application of Key Performance Indicators aids the project managers with a advanced, concurrent view of the growth of a company. Key Performance Indicators are expressed in terms of numbers and they in turn echo the vital success features of an organization. Hence it is obvious that they keep changing from one kind of organization to other depending on their nature. Marketing team building which is not confined to a particular function only. The cohesion between different functional team is obviously needed. All members of a particular team must owe their loyalty to the marketing manager. The head exercise various strategies and power source to influence the team members. 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