Marketing Strategy & Function of McDonald's

TASK 1

1. Roles of marketing as function opposed to role as department in a company

ROLE OF MARKETING AS FUNCTION

Marketing as a function is a process of identifying successful products of an organisation and then helps a business entity in promoting those products. In this context, it is essential for chosen organisation McDonald's in getting various opportunities in a competitive business environment, which indirectly helps an organisation in improving their overall growth. The major roles and responsibilities of marketing function are:

Enhance Sales and Profits: It is a crucial role of marketing function as it helps an organisation in improving their profit margin in a competitive business environment. In this context, it is the duty of McDonald's manager to adopt effective strategy which will increase sales of an organisation (William and Zikmund, 2012). It is also essential to provide appropriate training to its employees which will increase customer satisfaction level for an organisation. An example with respect to McDonald's can be considered to understand role of marketing function in this. By conducting marketing research they will evaluate requirements of customers, if expected standards are met by McDonald's as per customer's requirement then it will lead to positive impact on their sales.

Promotion: This is a crucial role of marketing function which is important for an organisation as it helps them in attracting new customer by promoting their products and services (opolšek and Čurin 2012). In this context, it is necessary for McDonald's to choose effective promotional strategy, which will helps them in achieving their customer's loyalty and in generating awareness to customers about their particular products and services. In relation to this factor, McDonald's is continuously using promotional methods like, T.V, social media and print media. It is one of the most important functions of marketing department of McDonald's i.e. promotion of their services and products. If effective promotional activities are carried out by them, then they will be able to enhance their customer base.

Using and managing Marketing information system: In this function marketing data of a particular organisation is collected and given to its managers on regular basis, which leads to efficient decision making. In this context, it will help the chosen organisation McDonald's is analysing market information and then use this as an opportunity to generate revenue. This factor will helps McDonald's in guiding its managers to make effective decisions to improve its overall performance. By using MIS marketing function of McDonald's can gain high advantage in terms of what they have done in past and what impact it had created on their operations or sales.

So as per the above mentioned discussion, it is essential for McDonald's to perform all marketing functions and responsibilities effectively and efficiently in order to increase their overall performance in a business environment.

ROLE OF MARKETING AS DEPARTMENT

Managing the brand: This indicates that marketing as department assists an entity in defining who they are, what they really stand for, their operations etc. This provides assistance to McDonald’s as they are able to provide a good experience for customers and partners when they build an interaction with business.

Campaign management for marketing initiatives:Marketing as a department assists in identification of such products and services that renders an advantage to company in the event of putting significant focus on those goods over the course of sales cycle. Within McDonald’s this assists the company to produce and develop such material and communications that assist in creating awareness the fast food items being sold by the firm.

Creation of content forSearch Engine Optimizationfor website:A company’s website is the prerequisite through which people gain information about the entity. The marketing department of McDonald’s is responsible for maintaining the Web content current and working to make sure that the fast food giant’s site emerges quickly when an individual searches for same type of business.

Monitoring and management ofsocial media accounts:Marketing department strives to contribute towards the management and maintenance of an entity’s social media pages. The marketing department of McDonald’s is responsible for managing accounts as well as carefully watching and supervising what is getting posted about the company online.

2. Structure of marketing department of organisation

MARKETING DEPARTMENT ROLES

Marketing Manager: A marketing manager working within the organisation is responsible for a number of tasks. In this regard, the roles and responsibilities of marketing manager are given below:-

• Marketing manager of McDonald's is responsible for carrying out marketing research as if they are able to identify exact requirements of customer then they will be able to provide them with what they needs this will increase their brand value within market.
• Marketing manager assists McDonald's to evaluate the prices their competitors are offering by this they can formulate their own pricing strategies to gain competitive edge within market.
• By evaluating the past experiences of company, marketing manager takes decisions in view of different aspects such as promotion, market research, pricing and many other activities.
• Major role of marketing manager is to carry out market research to identify needs of their potential customers, recognise their major competitors, strategies that rivals have been using and latest trends within market.

Social Media Manager: This managerial person within the organisation is responsible for taking into account the content that is currently available or going to be present on the organisation’s social media accounts. Further, they are responsible for devising and developing a social media strategy for company to enhance sales and profits in marketplace. Within McDonald's, social media manager is responsible for looking into the company’s website so as to provide relevant, valid and reliable content over it. Also, social media manager within McDonald’s selects the social media accounts which will serve as effective marketing channels for the enterprise and contribute towards enhancing the position of this fast food company in global market. Also, they handle the social media accounts managed by organisation such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus etc.

Chief Marketing Officer: Within an organisation, CMO is responsible for carrying out the marketing activities in an orderly conduct. Chief Marketing Officer of McDonald’s usually performs 3 tasks, namely, analytical, creative and inter-personal tasks.

• Analytical tasks: This is related to carrying out research associated with pricing and marketing.
• Creative tasks: This involves conducting activities so as to design and formulate advertising and promotional activities of McDonald’s.
• Inter-Personal tasks: This is associated with the role to coordinate the diverse set of thinking styles of marketing personnel in a single collaborative team.

3. Marketing process and importance of marketing environment to marketing function

Marketing process is the key to success and growth of an organisation as this outlines the efforts and initiatives undertaken by company to survive in market for a long duration of time. In this regards, McDonald’s is an organisation that is largely dependent on marketing process to gain the attention of a large number of people and build a loyal base of customers who do not intend to shift to substitute products. In this regard, the marketing process that takes place within McDonald’s is specified below:-

Market research and identification of opportunities: The first and foremost step that takes place within this process is conducting market research so as to gain knowledge about the consumer psyche and the latest trends and products prevailing within the marketplace. In this regard, McDonald’s invest heavily in R&D department and gain an insight into the needs and wants of customers so as to offer tastes that are out of the box and unique to customers. For this, company makes use of Marketing Information System and effectively tap the opportunities prevailing in market so as to maintain their leading position and reputation among customers.

Selection of Target Market and Target customers: The next step in this process is to identify the target customer segments and target market by making use of segmentation, targeting and positioning. In this regard, McDonald’s segment the markets as per the demographic characteristics of consumers in terms of their age. Their main target customer segments are children and younger generations who are always willing to try new tastes and possess the enthusiasm to pay extra if the quality of products is good.

Marketing Mix: Here, a company integrates the 7P’s of marketing into a wholesome package so as to offer high quality products at a suitable price at the right place by making use of relevant marketing channels and marketing process. In this regard, 7P’s of marketing are the reason behind McDonald’s success in global market which is hyper competitive.

Integration of marketing efforts to derive outcomes: This is the final stage of marketing process wherein all the marketing efforts and initiatives undertaken by company in association with promotions, advertisement, public relations etc. are integrated to meet the organisational goals and objectives in a desirable manner.

4. Explain how marketing function influences and interrelates with other associated departments

Marketing is a very broad term which not only refers to selling but also encompasses entire business promotion and working into it. It is a basic activity of every business concern and not any specialised activity (William and Zikmund, 2012). Marketing can further be explained as a result of a whole business view including the end result from customer's point of view. Concern and responsibility are two essential key areas of marketing that apply to all areas of management. Although marketing is carried out by only one department yet it applies to all departments of business. McDonald's is a huge fast food joint that is taken into consideration for studying this report. The interrelation of marketing and other associated departments is explained below:-

Production and marketing: Production department deals with manufacturing of goods and services in their very basic form. Marketing department carries out market analysis in terms of what people expect from them. Then this information is given to production department. According to that they (production team) prepare their own strategies to accomplish those needs. After completion of manufacturing of those requirements, marketing team carries out promotional activities to make people aware of the fact that their needs have been addressed.

Marketing and finance: Finance department works as a lifeblood of any business concern. It works at providing adequate flow of funds at a timely basis in any organisation. Marketing managers of McDonald's work close knit with finance department to ensure that there are adequate amount of budgets in every department so that needs of research , promotion and distribution department can be met. It is very important that every business operates within its financial capacity and does not overspend (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). They work in synchronisation with each other to make sure that functions of marketing team are not hampered. Finance team provide them with amount by which they can carry out their operations in effective manner. It is responsibility of finance department to ensure that they gives funds according to what is reasonable rather then what other department like marketing is asking for.

Human resource department and marketing: Like every other business concern, human resource department of McDonald's also aims at providing proper training and development to its employees and workers to help them work with greater efficiency. Marketing department of McDonald's needs to work closely with human resource department to ensure appropriate skills and staffing is provided to all employees so that they are able to research and develop new and innovative ideas about product development, meet all production targets within set time limits (Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne 2014). Moreover, HR department is also responsible for recruiting human resources in marketing department. This will assist marketing team to carry out their operations in new way as new joiner will bring new energy and innovation with themselves.

Research and development and marketing: Research department of McDonald's behaves like an engine of whole organisation which generates new ideas, innovations and aims at forming new creative products and services for attracting customers. Research and development should always be performed based on initial marketing concept and should always keep needs of consumers as central to any new research and development in order to deliver products that are able to satisfy needs of customers of McDonald's. Research & Development team is responsible for designing new strategies depending upon market. This research can be used by marketing team to have effective promotional activities by which they can enhance their customer base.

IT department and marketing: IT department of McDonald's focuses on the use of technology to treat with provided information which simply implies about how managers receive information and how they further utilise in creating products and services. This is a very wide sector as compared to all other sectors. Marketing managers of McDonald's need to maintain harmony with IT department so that they are able to disseminate information and work on improving products and services to satisfy customers and create a brand image. Marketing team can take assistance from IT department to carry out online promotional campaigns or activities to attract large number of candidates. Furthermore, marketing team can assist them (IT department) to make changes in their website and apps according to what customer expect from them and which is feasible.

Marketing department of McDonald's hence needs to work in co-ordination with every department to achieve high growth in terms of enhanced brand image, profits etc.

TASK 2

P3 Marketing Mix

It is a group of strategies use by an organisation in order to promote its products and service in market. This will help McDonald's to develop effective strategies to create marketing intelligence. This strategy also helps a company to determine effective marketing plans and strategies to enhance their productivity in dynamic businesses market. It is a tactic which is use by an organisation to promote its product or services in a competitive market. It will help McDonald's in making up an effective business plan to develop marketing intelligence (Brady, 2014). It will also help an organisation in identifying a suitable marketing strategy to increase its productivity in a dynamic business environment. It plays as a key function to distribute and maintain flow of goods and services. They have a well built portfolio of products that make their company different from all other competitors in marketplace. This mechanism will help McDonald's to identify their strength and weaknesses and develop effective measure to in order to overcome their weaknesses. In this regard, seven marketing mix p's which are pursued by McDonald's and burger king to become competitive business identity are discussed here:-

M3 Evaluating techniques which help in achieving organisational objectives

Assessment can be used as an effective technique by organisations for the achievement of organisational objectives. Any organisation assessment or evaluation is a systematic process which is used to extract important true and fair information or data about how an organisation behaves or performs. Also, it lays down key factors that affect performance of any business concern. For this assessment, organisations use control techniques as they provide managers with quality information required to measure evaluate and monitor performance. It can also be known as a performance appraisal method.

D2 Strategic marketing plan

Marketing plan

It is a document which includes marketing strategies of an organisation and future predictions which helps an organisation in achieving specific goals and objectives. It is a process of identifying customer needs and requirement, which are to be satisfied in order to increase their productivity. Marketing department of McDonald's forms various strategies which includes 7 P's of marketing mix, namely, place, price, product, process, promotion, physical environment and people in a business environment. Strategic market plan is a document which interlinks strategies and policies of company with marketing mix and its components. It helps in building goodwill and brand image of a company and also achieve timely goals and o

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