Marketing Strategy & Analysis of Marks and Spencer

TASK 1

P1.The key role and responsibilities of the marketing function in Mark and Spencer

Mark and Spencer is a British multinational organization which specialises in selling clothing, home products and luxury food products. The role and responsibilities of marketing department of respective organisation is very important that it can't be ignored because by it they can identify their target audience, demanded product, increase profit etc. There are various roles and responsiblities of marketing function which are described below-

Selling:- It is the core responsiblity of marketing, it consist of transfer of ownership to buyer. Selling concern play key role in realising the appropriate buyer those complete the purchasing process, for the aim of earning profit (Ahrens, 2011). This can be increase by means of personal selling, advertising, publicity and sales promotion. Mark and Spencer determines their volume of profits and profitability by effective and efficient selling. Marketing helps in identfying consumer needs and helps in selling of products.

Buying:- The buying function involves what to buy, of what quality, how much from whom, when and at what price. Person those are purchasing agent is influenced by quality, services and price of the product. Mark and Spencer sell their products to wholesaler who resell them to retailers. The products buy by retailer are based on the needs and preference of customers. A manufacturer buy raw materials, spare parts, machinery, equipment’s etc. from company for carrying out production process and other related activities (Bellenger, Bernhardt and Goldstucker, 2011). Marketing helps the buyer to choose from variety of products and satisfy their needs.

Transportation:- Transportation is the marketing function which mean physical movement of goods from one place to another, products are moved from place where it produce to place where they are needed for consumption. It is done mainly through railways, trucks, waterways, airways and pipelines it depend up to product type. Mark and Spencer doing their business worldwide for that they have to transports their products to different place or country which create unity of place. The transportation type chosen by respective company depend upon several considerations such as suitability, speed and cost. It can be performed either by buyer or seller. Marketing helps in transporting goods to the customers at the proper convenient stores from which they can reach easily.

Storage:- It include keeping of products in appropriate condition from the time it produce until it needed by customer or by production department, storing protect goods from any damage and help carrying over extra products for future consumption. Mark and Spencer store their surplus products to various warehouse situated at different places, which is known as warehousing. These warehouses are suitable at such location from where the distribution of goods may be easier and cheaper. Marketing analyses the future demands of the customer and helps the production department for the proper storage,

Standardization and Grading: - Standardization means creation of certain specification for products based on intrinsic physical qualities like weight, size, colour, shape, taste, material etc. Some standards are also set by government for example in agriculture products. Grading means dividing standardised products into certain defined classes or groups. It is important for raw material, agriculture products, mining products and forest products (Bird 2012.). Mark and Spencer must establish some standard like weight, size, colour, shape etc. for the production department according to the grading or group of the products. Marketing analyses the shape, colour of the product and provide information to the department to meet the needs of the consumer.

Financing: - It involves the use of capital to meet financial requirement of agencies which is dealing with various activities of market. In marketing function finance are important for working capital and fixed capital which is secured from three sources- owned capital, bank loan and trade credit (Brooks and Simkin, 2012). The respective company use various type of finance- short term finance, medium term finance and long term finance to meet the requirements of agencies to perform various activities. It determines the adequate cash available with the organisation to meet its needs of production.

Risk Taking:- Marketing greatly analyses the internal and the external environment and analyses the risk coming from the environment which will effect its operations and the business. Marketing ascertain the risk and helps to cope effectively.

Market Information: - The right market information and facts reduce the aforesaid risk and result in profit and cost reduction. By help of market information a seller may know when to sell, at what price to sell, who are the competitors, etc. Market analysis help the Mark and Spencer in such way to collect information from market and then plan strategy accordingly and avoid unforeseen risk. It collects information from the market of customer needs and demands and provides to the certain department for their fullfilment.

P2 Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational context.

The process of creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging products to the customers and the society which satisfies their needs and wants is termed as Marketing. It is all about identifying and satisfying customer requirements. Marks and Spencer is a multinational retail company that specialises in clothing, food, home and luxury products. It plays an important role in building relationship between the organisation and the customers. Marketing department of M&S performs various responsibilities in order to target the large audience.

Importance of Marketing in marks and Spencer

Source of new ideas- Marketing gives the M&S a new scope for understanding new ideas, demand patterns thereby produce goods accordingly. With the demand in health conscious food products it started producing Kellogg cornflakes which gained larger share of market.

Increases sales margin- When customers are aware about the popularity of the products sold by the company it can target large audience. M&S deals in clothing, food and home items which have gained popularity in the minds of the customer and increases their sales margin by provide them better quality of products (Cabrera and Williams, 2014).

Loyalty that drives effectiveness- Sparks loyalty card that allows M&S to improve its effectiveness. They started moving away from the promotional discounts and use that money to give to the consumers to extend their loyalty towards business.

Increase in trust and Awareness- M&S believe in creating awareness and adopted above the line and below the line to make its presence felt to consumers. They started advertising in magazines, newspaper and started endorsing with celebrities to gain popularity in the market which results in increase demand for the products by the consumer.

Interrelationship of other departments with marketing

Marketing is interlinked with each and every department in the organisation. It provides information to all other departments such as production, finance, Human resource and Research and development (Coombs,2012). Marks and Spencer marketing department is interlinked with other departments for the effective functioning of the company.

Marketing and production department- Marketing department of M&S works closely with the production department to ensure that products are manufactured to appropriate quality and design specifications as needed by the consumer. It also ensures that quantity of orders given by the marketing department to the production should be met within the proper dead line. M&S gain the competitive advantage as it sets deadline for the production department for manufacturing goods.

Marketing and Finance Department- Marketing department of M&S works closely with the finance department to oversee if the company having enough budget to meet the needs for promotion and distribution. M&S deals in portfolio of products it requires large amount of funds to meet the needs and gain large market share. It analyses the demand for the existing or the new products and ensure the finance department that it can meet up with the demand of the consumer by having enough funds for the production.

Marketing and Human resource department- It also works closely with the HR department to ensure that employees with appropriate skill and staffing techniques are recruited to meet the production target and to create a competent sales team (Cooper and et. al., 2014). M&S marketing team should focus on appointing team members with different set of skills that can easily fit up in the different product lines of M&S. HR communication role is interrelated to the marketing department.

Marketing with Research and development Department – R&D is primarily responsible for generating new ideas and bringing innovations in the company products and services. M&S deals in various product lines which needs to be continuously innovated. For example, when the marketing department analysed the need for the health diet products like cornflakes it provided information to R&D department which bring innovation by adding flavours to the original flavour. This way it is interlined with R&D department.

Marketing is interlinked with other departments to ensure that company achieves competitive advantage and its operations work smoothly (Daniel2011).

TASK 2

P3 Compare the ways in which organisations apply the marketing mix to achieve business objectives.

Marketing tools that the company uses to pursue its objectives is defined as marketing mix. It refers to the broad levels of taking marketing decision about the product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence. It is a significant tool for creating and implementing the proper marketing strategy through effective decisions. In the case study mentioned about beauty giant which is cosmetic selling company of UK. They don't sell or produce any good of their own brand, now the company has decided to launch new anti-ageing product called Forever Young which they believe to share a larger market. Thus, marketing mix will help the company to choose appropriate strategy.

Marketing mix Of beauty giant and virgin cosmetics

P4 Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for the organisation.

It is a blueprint that describes the business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives. It outlines the marketing efforts and the advertising activities that the organisation will use for the coming year (Friis, 2012).

Beauty Giant is a cosmetic selling company that has around 50 branches all over UK. They sell men and women toiletries from various renounced brands. They don't produce or sell products of their own so far. Now they decided to launch a new anti-ageing product called 'Forever Young' which they believe to gain larger market.

Vision- To be a company of high reputation recognized by the quality standard of our cosmetic products.

Mission- To ensure complete satisfaction and wellbeing of the customers by proving high performance cosmetic products and promoting maximum efficiency and social responsibility (Hsu, 2011)

Objective - To introduce Forever young (anti-ageing products) for improvement of market share by 20% within 6 months of time period.

STP Approach

It is a strategic approach useful for marketers to demonstrate the link between the market and how the company chooses its strategy to compete in the market (Jones, 2011).

Segmentation- The process of dividing the market into groups, segments based on some shared characteristics. Beauty giant new product is mainly segmenting the customers of age above 35 as it is an anti-ageing product.

Targeting- Company of cosmetic products mainly target women who have interest in cosmetic counters (Ionitã, 2012). Beauty giant targets women and men by providing them high quality cosmetic products.

Positioning- Beauty giant wants to position its product at the top to target the most valuable customer about their new products and to capture larger market (Langer and Heil, 2015).

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SWOT Analysis

Strength: -

• Continuous research and innovation help in introducing new product like Forever Young.
• Beauty Giant is leader of growing cosmetic industry with 50 branches all over UK.
• They do innovative and attractive advertising which focus the target audience.
• The respective company offer cosmetics products for both men and women of all age group.

Weaknesses: -

• Continuous rising of competitors in cosmetics industry.
• Price of Beauty Giant is high that some people can't afford it.
• Profit margin of some cosmetics products are less.
• Organization structure of given company is decentralised.

Opportunities:-

• Beauty Giant can expand or grow their business globally or in multinational market.
• By innovation respective company can create more new products on basis of customer demand.
• Beauty Giant must make organic and natural cosmetic products which is in demand.
• The respective company can build brand equity between their consumer.

Threats:-

• Negative publicity of product or brand may hurt company name.
• Growing competitors in the range of cosmetic brands.
• Economic downfall affect Beauty Giant profit.
• Change in market demand affect the company profit.
• Online availability of cosmetic product with less price, affect sales of respective company.

MARKETING MIX OF BEAUTY GIANT :

Product :- The new product Forever Young is targeting men and women of age group of more than 30 and it is an organic and natural cream without having harmful chemical.

Pricing:- The price of new launched product is of middle range which is affordable by maximum every income group people.

Place:- Beauty Giant must distribute its product to its all 50 distributors and local cosmetic shops all over the UK, so that it is reachable to maximum people.

Promotion:- For promotion of new product Beauty Giant can do advertisement through publishing an article in newspaper, magazines or they can distribute flyers all over UK.

Marketing Budget:

Monitoring and controlling – These kind of activities assist in measuring marketing strategies by implementing different practices. Marketing manager plays an important role in monitoring and controlling aspects. Through this they can easily make proper control on them by attaining desired objectives and goals.

CONCLUSION

From the above report it has been concluded that marketing is the most vital concept of an organisation in providing and promoting goods and services. Firms need to plan and implement new ideas for achieving desired results. These kind of practices adopted by the marketing managers provides effective contribution in implementing new strategies. Marketing mix helps the organisation in formulating new strategies to achieve the desired results.

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