THE MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MARKETING
The management process consists of planning, imple¬mentation, and evaluation. Planning provides direction to an organization by deciding now what we are going to do later, including when and how We are going to it. Strategic planning is intended to match an organization's resources with its market opportunities over the long run.
In any Organisation, there should be three levels of planning: strategic company planning, strategic market¬ing planning, and annual marketing planning. In strate¬gic company planning, management defines the organization's mission, assesses its operating environ¬ment, sets long-range goals, and formulates broad strat¬egies to achieve the goals, This level of planning guides planning in different functional areas, including market¬ing.Strategic marketing planning entails five steps: con¬duct a situation analysis, develop marketing objectives, determine positioning and differential advantage, select target markets and measure market demand, and de¬sign a marketing mix. On the basis of strategic market¬ing plans, an annual marketing plan lays out a year's marketing activities for each major product and division '"' of an organization. An annual plan includes tactics as well as strategies. It is typically prepared by the execu¬tive responsible for the division or product.
Management can rely on one or more of the following models for assistance with strategic planning: The prod uct-market growth matrix, the BCG matrix, and the GE
business screen. In seeking growth through new prod¬ucts, an organization may need to deal with the matter of cannibalization. A planning model helps management see how best to allocate its resources and to select effective marketing strategies.
The management process in marketing consists of the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the marketing effort in an organisation. Implementation is the stage in which an organization takes steps to carry out its strategic planning. If is not implemented effec¬tively, strategic planning is virtually useless.
Implementation includes three activities: organising, staffing, and directing. In organising, the company should first coordinate all marketing activities into one depart¬ment whose top executive reports directly to the presi¬dent. Then, for the selling function within the marketing department, the company should choose a form of organisational specilisation based on geographic terri¬tories, products, or customer types.
An underappreciated component of a marketing pro¬gram, namely warranties and other postsale services, are implemented largely after a sale is made. Warran¬ties require considerable management attention these day because of consumer complaints and governmen¬tal regulations. Product liability is an issue oJ great con¬sequence to companies because of the significant fi¬nancial risk associated with consumers' claims of injuries caused when using a firm's product. .
Many companies provide postsale service-such as merchandise returns, maintenance and repairs, and complaint handling-to fulfill the terms of their warran¬ties and/or to augment their revenues. To promote cus¬tomer satisfaction, number of firms are improving their methods of inviting and responding to consumer com¬plaints.
The evaluation state in the management process in¬volves measuring performance results against pre-de¬termined goals. Evaluation enables management to determine the effectiveness of its implementation and to plan corrective action where necessary. A marketing audit is a key element in a marketing evaluation pro¬gram.
Most companies are victims of at least some misdi¬rected marketing effort. That is, the 80-20 and iceberg principles are at work in many firms because marketing costs are expanded in relation to the number of market¬ing units (territories, products, customers), rather than in relation to their profit potential. Too many companies do not know how much they should spend for market¬ing activities, or what result they should get from these expenditures.
The financial results of marketing endeavors should be analysed in terms of sales volume, market share, and marketing costs. One challenge in marketing cost analysis is allocating costs - especially indirect costs¬to the marketing units. Given detailed assessments, management can study sales volume and marketing costs by territories, product lines, categories of cus¬tomer, and/or order sizes. The findings from these analy¬ses can help shape decisions regarding a company's marketing program.
