Marketing Essentials Assignment Solution - Pdf

MARKETING ESSENTIALS

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is determined as the crucial tool in this modern business world. In involves
detail understanding of customer's demand, market, marketing strategies, and offering quality
products among consumers. Many organisations have now understood the importance of
customer relationship & are now making efforts to acquire an innovative plan of action towards
marketing strategy. This report is based over a mini case study which describes a business
company named Zara, which is located in Spain and it has around 408 stores in 44 countries. It
deals in both men's & women's clothing as well as kids clothing.
The overall report focuses over the marketing essentials in business. It explains the roles
& responsibilities of marketing with its functions & their interrelation with other functional units
of Zara. Further, it compares different ways of applying marketing mix in the company to attain
goals. Also, this report will produce and evaluate basic marketing plan for the chosen firm.
LO1
a) The key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
Marketing refers to a place or area where sellers and buyers meet, where marketers sell
their products or services to customers (Ambat, Cabagnot and Tiong, 2017). According to
Chartered Institute of Marketing; it is the process of management responsible for evaluating,
identifying and satisfying customer's needs. The CIM definition of marketing also states that
why process of marketing is important including its objectives & outcomes. The concept of
marketing determines that it is a philosophy that organisations should examine the necessity &
preferences of their consumers and then only make decision to fulfil them. Further, the nature of
marketing is a human activity under which their needs are satisfied. Its functions refer to the
roles of business entity which allows them to identify successful products for market. Zara also
involves common functions such as; marketing research, development process, strategic
planning, sales, etc. all these are responsible for growth of the company. These marketing
functions have different responsibilities to boost the growth of an organisation (Fill and Turnbull,
2016). Functions key roles & responsibilities are finance, research, communication, distribution,
promotion, selling, etc. Distribution channel: - the role of distribution channel is to understand how company can
distribute their products so that it can be easily available to customers. It basically means

that how Zara will plan to distribute their goods to buyers (Chan, 2018). Whether they
want to sell online, or overseas or on high streets, all these discussions take place under
this channel. Most of its stores are located near high-end retailers that dram high range of
traffic. The organisation with its physical outlets & online existence, enable them to get
reviews from buyers to make changes (Armstrong, Kotler and Brennan, 2015). Financing: - it is an important function of marketing. It consists of two parts in which
financing deals. First is marketing department and second is providing consumers
alternative & easier ways to obtain their products (Yadav, Kumar Dokania and Swaroop
Pathak, 2016). Hence, it means that marketing is going to pay for itself and further helps
company to develop a sense of trust & better business relationships. Selling: - this function of marketing refers to selling finished products in the market. Over
the last few years, use of internet sales has increased, thus, selling has also changed.
Earlier it was used to be a direct interaction between seller and a customer, but nowadays
it can be done almost online. For example, Zara products are supplied based on
customer’s trends (Amos, Coste-Manière and Grasselli, 2017). Market research: - this function is about collecting information regarding company's
target market. Organisation identifies; who all are their customers, what they want to buy,
and so on. Addressing all these questions, requires a market research to observe the latest
trends & knowing its competitors’ products. Therefore, it is a key responsibility for Zara's
marketing department (Babin and Zikmund, 2015).
 Promotional channel: - this function deals with bringing awareness of company's product
to customers by using various promotional tools. Zara gets a lot of attention through
word-of-mouth advertising. Also, it benefits from endorsement from celebrities.
Illustration 1: ZARA Store