The Importance of Marketing in Tesco's Success

The report emphasizes the importance of marketing in Tesco's success, citing its impact on customer satisfaction and retention. It also explores how marketing drives growth and sustainability in the company. By understanding these aspects, students can learn about the key role of marketing in a retail business like Tesco.

Marketing Essentials

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
QUESTION 1..................................................................................................................................1
Role of marketing as a function of business in opposite to marketing as a department in a
company.......................................................................................................................................1
QUESTION 2..................................................................................................................................2
Structure of marketing department of Tesco and explaining two different marketing roles.......2
QUESTION 3..................................................................................................................................4
Overview of the marketing process and significance of marketing environment to its function 4
QUESTION 4..................................................................................................................................6
The way marketing function influences and interrelates with other departments in organisation
.....................................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing serves as the lifeblood of business in today’s era of intense competition among
firms on which the success and growth of organisation depends to a high extent (Chernev, 2018).
In present report, there will be discussion on the role of marketing in context of business as well
as a department in company. Tesco is the selected organisation for study which is the leading
retail organisation based in UK. With reference to this, structure of marketing department will be
studied with explanation of different marketing roles. Further, overview of marketing process
will be given with analysing the importance of marketing environment. Also, there will be focus
on the influence of marketing function and its interrelation with other departments.
QUESTION 1
Role of marketing as a function of business in opposite to marketing as a department in a
company
Marketing as a function of business is not similar to that of marketing as a department in
company. There is little difference as major role of marketing as a function is to provide highest
level of satisfaction to customers. While, on the other hand, marketing as a department has main
role of coordinating with all other units of organisation so that required products and services can
be offered to the target market on time by providing necessary information to all divisions
(Kasemsap, 2018). In Tesco, main role of marketing as a function is to identify the products that
are needed by target audience and source potentially successful products for them. Also, to
differentiate the products of company from other similar offerings of rivalry firms is another
major role of marketing.
However, on the contrary, as a department in Tesco, marketing plays a significant role in
tracking the trends of target market and monitoring competition so that suitable strategies can be
framed that would help in beating the rivalry among firms. Apart from that, bringing innovation
in products time to time is the major role of marketing department in organisation as without
having same, business cannot sustain for long. Further, marketing as a function in Tesco plays
the role of risk assessment and quality control too where it looks at the variables by which sale of
company’s products and services can get hampered. It is responsible for making the product
stand up in against of competitor brands (Angulo-Ruiz and et.al., 2018). On the other hand,
marketing as a department in Tesco has major role of connecting customers to products through
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CRM (customer relationship management) so that their needs and wants can be tracked as well
as predicted and accordingly, the offerings can be made to render utmost level of satisfaction.
QUESTION 2
Structure of marketing department of Tesco and explaining two different marketing roles
As Tesco follows tall (hierarchical) organisational structure, all its departments also
follow the same. Thus, the structure of marketing department of Tesco also consists of layers as
per the positions employees hold in organisation. Recently, company has streamlined its
marketing structure where it appointed a new customer chief named Jill Easterbrook. The charge
of marketing, planning and operations teams now is in hands of Sharry Crammond and Neil
Adams who are the Brand Director and Head of marketing, event and promotions respectively.
Further, in Tesco, now CMO Matt Atkinson is the chief creative officer (Chow and et.al., 2018).
Along with that, Leonie Foster has become the communications director and position of food and
general merchandise director is taken by Crammond and Tracey Clements. It has been predicted
that this restructuring of marketing department may result in lots of redundancies in the
organisation.
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Figure 1: Structure of Marketing Department
(Source: Marketing Organizational Chart, 2019)
From all the different roles in marketing department shown in above figure, for gaining
in-depth understanding, discussion on two is given as below:
 Promotion Director – In Tesco, Promotion Director plays a crucial role being operating
in the retail industry of UK where there is intense level of competition. He mainly deals
with creating and coordinating the events and programs related to promotion of products
and services of Tesco. Being at this position, he needs to deal with advertisers and
contacting vendors with writing the press releases. Also, to compose the proposals for
future events is also one of his main roles (Promotions Director, 2019). Apart from that,
an important role played by him in this organization is of campaign planning as he is the
one who develops detailed plans for promotions that are aligned with the marketing
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strategy of organization. They decide type of promotional offer on the basis of target
audience to gain best possible outcomes in the most effective manner.
 Public Relations Manager – In Tesco, major roles played by the Public Relations
Manager include proper and effective management of communication, brand reputation,
relationship, risk and resources of organization. He is responsible for the planning,
development and execution of strategies related to public relations along with collating
and analyzing the coverage of media (Hanaysha, 2018). Further, his role is to build long-
term relationships will all stakeholders of company like media people, local government,
etc. Apart from that, he produces content for various events and speeches with their
planning and budgeting too.
QUESTION 3
Overview of the marketing process and significance of marketing environment to its function
Marketing process can be termed as a procedure which helps in identifying and analysing
the existing opportunities in market along with selecting the most suitable target market that can
in return provide highest level of profits to the firm. Further, it is about development of
marketing mix and effectual administration of efforts made under this function involving
targeting of the right audience. Majorly, marketing process in Tesco involves four steps which
are like:
Figure 2: Marketing Process
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Implementatio
n and control
Marketing mix
decisions
Marketing
strategy
Situation
analysis

1. Analysing the market opportunities – This is the first step of marketing process in Tesco
where marketing department at first analyses the market in which firm is operating so that
existing opportunities in terms of needs and wants of target customers can be availed
(Sowter, 2018). Tesco uses MIS (marketing information system) for the same so that only
those opportunities will be grabbed by organisation which would be beneficial for
business in the long run success. Also, effective market research is conducted by
organisation so that valuable information related to customers, competitors and general
trends can be gained by the firm.
2. Selecting the target market – On the basis of market research and analysis of existing
opportunities, market is divided into different segments on the basis of age group,
geographical location, etc. (Ardito and et.al., 2018). Based on strengths and weaknesses
of each segment, next step of marketing process is to make selection of the target market
as it is not possible to satisfy the needs and wants of whole market. After targeting the
right audience, positioning of product is done by Tesco so that in comparison to the
products of competitors, a different and better image in the minds of customers can be
created. For positioning, company offers the competitive advantages to its target
customers (Tomczak, Reinecke and Kuss, 2018).
3. Development of marketing mix – Next step is to develop the marketing mix for the
product that is going to be offered to the targeted audience which includes information
about product, price, place and promotion. Here, main emphasis is given on the customer
solution, cost on which target audience will be ready to purchase the product,
convenience of customers as well as in the communication medium that proves to be best
suitable to convince the target market to buy the offering of company (Foxall, 2018).
Tesco uses digital advertising and promotional campaigns for same.
4. Implementation and control – After the marketing plan is developed and product is
launched in decided market, results of marketing efforts are monitored by the team
closely so that in case of any kind of deviations, corrective measures on time can be
taken. In this last step of marketing process, with changes in the market, proper
adjustments are made in the marketing mix too (Chernev, 2018). However, it does not
end with just implementation of plan as to satisfy the needs of customers consistently,
monitoring on continuous basis with adaption is done.
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Significance of marketing environment to marketing function
Any business operating in a dynamic environment like Tesco gets affected by various
environmental factors. On the basis of these factors only, business decisions are made and thus,
marketing environment plays an important role to marketing function. However, environmental
and marketing dynamics of Tesco get changed time to time as these are uncertain in nature, but,
still it is crucial to understand all aspects so that suitable strategies can be framed that would
prove to be beneficial for the success of business (Cosgrove, 2016). Also, it can be said that in
presence of intense rivalry among firms, it is significant for Tesco to give due emphasis on
marketing function so that customers can easily choose their products over competitor brands.
Study of marketing environment helps marketing department of Tesco in understanding the
competitors and framing strategies accordingly. Also, it proves to be significant in bringing
innovation in business through understanding the consumer’s needs and wants (Olson and et.al.,
2018). Therefore, it is the responsibility of company to monitor any changes in marketing
environment and making decisions accordingly to avoid risks.
QUESTION 4
The way marketing function influences and interrelates with other departments in organisation
Marketing is that department in a company which influences all its functions and it is
interrelated to all the units of firm. Without cooperating with other departments, neither
marketing unit can perform their tasks; nor the other divisions. In Tesco, influence of marketing
on other departments and its interrelationship with them is discussed as below:
 Marketing and HR department – When marketing department starts doing research
about the offering which target customers need, it informs the HR department about how
much human resources will be required for executing the project. Accordingly, HR
department makes efforts to fill the manpower gap so that activities of all departments
would not get hampered due to employee shortage (Kasemsap, 2018).
 Marketing and Operations department – On the basis of results of market research
conducted by marketing department of Tesco, operations unit of firm is given with orders
and instructions to do production accordingly. A specific deadline is given to them within
which required production is to take place so that market needs can be satisfied on time.
 Marketing and Finance – Further, to perform any marketing activity like conducting
research, doing promotions through advertising or other media, planning promotional
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campaigns, etc., proper funds are required that are provided by the finance department
only (Angulo-Ruiz and et.al., 2018). Thus, when marketing department informs about the
need of funds, finance unit of Tesco ensures about same and then allocates the required
budgets.
Similarly, there are other departments too in Tesco like IT (information technology),
R&D (research and development) and sales which are interrelated to marketing unit and get
influenced by its activities. On the basis of research conducted by marketing unit, it is decided
that which kind of product is required by target customers and in case if any new technology is
required, IT department helps for the same (Chow and et.al., 2018). Likewise, it is responsibility
of R&D unit to conduct research and provide proper reports to marketing department, based on
which decision related to sales is taken.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that to stay in market for longer span of time
with attaining growth and success, giving due emphasis on marketing is of utmost importance. It
has also been assessed that marketing plays the most important role in providing highest level of
satisfaction to customers which helps in retaining and stopping them to switch over on other
competitive brands. Report has shown that if customers are not satisfied, to success in market
with sustainability and gaining a competitive edge over others can never be possible. Thus,
Tesco needs to give high consideration on its marketing efforts.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Angulo-Ruiz, F. and et.al., 2018. How does marketing capability impact abnormal stock returns?
The mediating role of growth. Journal of Business Research. 82. pp.19-30.
Ardito, L. and et.al., 2018. Towards Industry 4.0: Mapping digital technologies for supply chain
management-marketing integration. Business Process Management Journal.
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Chow, P. S. and et.al., 2018. Contemporary Case Studies on Fashion Production, Marketing and
Operations. Springer Singapore.
Foxall, G. R., 2018. 12 An Economic Psychology of the Marketing Firm. The Cambridge
Handbook of Psychology and Economic Behaviour. p.365.
Hanaysha, J. R., 2018. Customer retention and the mediating role of perceived value in retail
industry. World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable
Development. 14(1). pp.2-24.
Kasemsap, K., 2018. The roles of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the
global retail industry. In Digital Marketing and Consumer Engagement: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 294-325). IGI Global.
Olson, E. M. and et.al., 2018. The application of human resource management policies within the
marketing organization: The impact on business and marketing strategy
implementation. Industrial Marketing Management. 69. pp.62-73.
Sowter, C. V., 2018. Marketing high technology services. Routledge.
Tomczak, T., Reinecke, S. and Kuss, A., 2018. Marketing Implementation and Management
Control. In Strategic Marketing (pp. 223-244). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Online
Cosgrove, L., 2016. Importance of Marketing Environment to a Marketer. [Online]. Available
through: <https://medium.com/@lilycosgrove/importance-of-marketing-environment-to-
a-marketer-112f80e14f9>.
Marketing Organisational Chart. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.edrawsoft.com/marketing-orgchart.php>.
Promotions Director. 2019. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.chegg.com/career-
center/explore/promotions-director>.
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