Sales and Marketing: Strategies for General Productions

This article discusses the effective use of social media and celebrities in marketing, product design, budgeting, and activity-based costing for General Productions. It also explains the roles of sales and marketing teams in generating revenues and profits.

Sales and Marketing
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Sales and Marketing
Introduction
In order for any company or corporation to generate sales from a specified product, potential
customers need to know about the existence of such a product and why it is more preferable that
similar commodities in the market. The responsibility to spread out this information rests on
marketing and sales teams’ shoulders. The marketing team plays an important role at the
commencement of a potential sale while the sales group follows suit in finalizing a deal and
addressing consumers’ concerns. The two teams thus need to work together to create a seamless
experience for potential buyers (Rehme & Rennhak, 2011). Marketing responsibilities in an
organization include raising awareness about the product, engaging in an effort to build on an
initial awareness campaign and conversion of potential customers into loyal consumers of the
company’s product (creating a known lead) (Wilson & Gilligan, 2012). Sales responsibilities, on
the other hand, include following up on the leads created by the marketing sector, relationship
building which helps develop trust between the corporation and the consumers of its product and
ability to close the deals, that is, turn them into customers. Retention of customers is a shared
responsibility as both teams need to build a long term relationship by regularly checking in with
existing clients (Götz, Hoelter & Krafft, 2013).
Part 1
Use of Social Media and Celebrities in Marketing
In the contemporary world almost everyone is engaged in the use of social media in one way or
the other. Many businesses have also turned to social media with an aim of increasing their sales
as well as the customer base. Social media is one of the most effective ways of creating

awareness about a company’s products. It is no surprise therefore, that the chief marketing
officer of General Productions (GP) suggests incorporation of social media in marketing of the
mobile phones. Social media usage in marketing has the following benefits:
Potential Customers: There is a sea of interchanges taking place online about every feature of
our present lives. Social media usage is therefore very effectual in finding out people from
different regions and cultures who would be interested in a company’s products.
Understanding the Market: Most people who are communicating online are not fearful of
opening up about their true opinions or feelings as they feel safe due to lack of physical contact.
This is thus the best way to fully comprehend what the consumers of the products truly want. It
helps companies keep track of the constantly changing tastes and preferences of their products’
buyers (Patino, Pitta & Quinones, 2012). The corporation is also able to find out what people
think of their products which is crucial in making informed decisions about them (Caemmerer &
Wilson, 2010).
Analyzing Competition: It is vital to determine what consumers say about the competition’s
products online(Medina & Pereira, 2012). Social media makes it possible for a company to find
out the customer’s compliments and complaints about the products of the competition which
enables them to gain a competitive advantage by giving the buyers exactly what they
require(Stucke, 2013).
Use of celebrities
The use of celebrities in marketing is very effective, especially in technological commodities
such as mobile phones. Many people look up to these known personalities as they perceive them
as having great success in life. They have a huge following in social media sites and thus have

the capability of reaching many people. Technological equipment such as GP’s mobile phones
would generate great sales if they were advertised by celebrities on television and social media
(Chavda, 2012).
Product Design
Product design refers to the detailed specifications of a manufactured product. It takes into
account the economical production of a commodity that performs its functionality in a safe,
efficient and reliable way. In this case, mobile phones are important commodities whose features
matter to their users. The internal structures in a mobile phone are very imperative to prospective
buyers as they determine the ability of the phone to carry out its functions more efficiently. The
attractive features of the manufactured mobile phones can lead to very high sales for the
company (Homburg, Schwemmle & Kuehnl, 2015).
Growth in Revenues and Profits
The smart move for General Productions would be a reduction of the product lines and focus on
those that its staff are more skilled in their production. GP mostly outsources the required skills
in order to manufacture its products. Outsourcing is quite expensive and even more so in this
situation since the skills required are not easily obtainable. Addition of other product lines such
as its own mobile phones should be very carefully analyzed against the current financial position
of the firm. This electronics manufacturing company also has neither great experience in mobile
phone production nor the skilled personnel to carry out this activity. This therefore would not be
a good strategy for the organization.
In addition GP should not give as much freedom to its marketing managers to execute whatever
marketing strategies they consider necessary. The marketing department should be encouraged to

work as a team whereby all managers come together to discuss the most operative strategy
(Rehme & Rennhak, 2011).The company’s marketing sector should also work hand in hand with
the sales department managers for better results. Currently, GP encourages its marketing
managers to compete against each other by basing compensation on revenue. For more
operational outcomes commission of the managers should be based on matters such as the
quality of relationships formed with the customers, the frequency of the sales made to each
customer as well as the profits generated. The range at which prices can be sold should be fixed
and a policy formulated whereby all managers are required to adhere to these prices and those
who do not punished, maybe by demotion (Indounas, 2015).
Part 2
Budgeting
Issues in Establishing Budget Systems
Setting goals: organizational goal setting requires the determination of the level of
aggressiveness of the workers of the company. This may bring about arguments among the
managers involved in the budgeting process as some may claim that the targets should be
extremely challenging and require employees to put more hard work while others may maintain
that the goals should be achievable by reasonable efforts. In GP the goal could be a definite
revenue generation while observing the price control of products that is, not selling above a
specified price to avoid consumer exploitation or selling below the price range which would lead
to a reduction of the company’s profits. The company can use a tiered system to evaluate the
performance of the employees whereby one who misses the target by far is considered off-target,
one who achieves the budget goal is on-target and one who exceeds expectation is above

target.To encourage hard work the best performers should be rewarded (Vaznonienė &
Stončiuvienė, 2012).
Employee Acceptance: it is very difficult to garner real employee support in budgeting. Some
workers are not cognizant of the institutional budget goals during their daily workings and
therefore have no motivation to work hard at all. During GP’s budgeting process, a transparent
approach should be assimilated accompanied with regular meetings to help inform the personnel
and keep them up to date. The workforce can only take up ownership of the budget targets if they
have a thorough understanding of its importance.
Advantages of Budgeting to an Organization
Budgeting brings to light the problems of the company in relation to expenditures and revenues.
It enables the organizational managers to determine the performance gap between the expected
outcomes and the actual results achieved. According to the current operations of GP, the
revenues would most likely surpass their budget goals. This would lead to the company carrying
out an investigation to find out the reasons for this which would then solve the product quotation
problem (Ingenbleek, Frambach &Verhallen, 2013).
It helps the management to comprehend and co-ordinate several functional activities. The
functions of the management include decision making, organizing, controlling, planning and
directing (Bufan, 2013). With a common financial goal, GP’s management would be able to
carry out its functions more actively due to the resulting cooperation. The corporation would be
progressed and its operations expanded by the managers in all departments working together to
accomplish a specific goal and not against each other.

Budgeting standardizes processes, production and equipment. It indicates the financial usage of
each production process to develop which product(s). In the case of General Productions, a
decision has to be made on whether to reduce the product lines and product life cycle or not.
Budgeting would help in making the right decision in this instance by portraying an estimation of
the expense incurred in production of each product. It would bring to light the processes that are
not needed, hence aid in allocation of finances in the most essential practices in each product’s
production.
Part 3
Activity Based Costing (ABC) Costing Methodology
Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a cost accounting process in which costs of overhead activities
are identified then assigned to products. The method establishes the relationship between
overhead activities, costs and manufactured products and through this it consigns those costs to
products less randomly as compared to traditional methodologies.Unlike traditional methods that
depend on volume count such as direct labor hours or machine hours to allocate overhead costs,
ABC strategy classifies activities into five broad levels which are unrelated to the units produced
ton a certain extent.
It is mostly amalgamated inmanufacturing since it improves the reliability of data on costs
thereby generating nearly true costs. It also enhances the classification of the expenses incurred
by the company in its production process.ABC costing procedure is based on activities. An
activity in the production process is defined as unit of work, task or any event with a specified
goal. Activities in manufacturing include setting up a machine for production, operating
machines, designing products as well as distribution of products. Unit-level activity, batch-level

activity, product-level activity, customer-level activity and organization-sustaining activity are
the five activity levels according to the ABC costing methodology.
This costing system is used in product line profitability analysis, service pricing, product costing,
customer profitability analysis and target costing. ABC costing strategy is widely used as it
grasps organizational costs better hence enabling companies to come up with improved strategies
and corporate focus (Rof & Andreica, 2011)).
In General Productions, the ABC method would help establish all the overhead costs according
to the various classes of activities. This would thus mean that all the costs incurred in
manufacturing have been classified. The company can then set up prices for its products putting
into account all its expenditures. This costing methodology would ensure that the organization
does not suffer any losses as determination of the all costs correctly ensures that the price set
covers them and generates some profits (Al-Halabi & Shaqqour, 2018).
Part 4
The gross profit can vary adversely from the budget figure due to various reasons. A change in
inventory accounting method is just one of them. In GP’s scenario, a low gross profit would be
as a result of uninformed marketing strategies. Under quotation of product prices in order to
close a deal with clients, leads to selling those products at lower prices which obviously impacts
the company’s profit generating capability (Smith, 2012). It might generate revenue due to
selling of products to many customers but the total revenue will not cover the total costs incurred
in the production process of the product leading to losses. Continuous under quotation severely
affects the profits of the company over time (Liozu & Hinterhuber, 2014).

Conclusion
In summary, it is evident that social media is a great asset in marketing and sales in a
corporation. It leads to an increased consumer base, a better understanding of an organization’s
customers as well as a comprehension and analysis of the competition. General Productions
manufacturing specialist can engage social media and celebrities in the marketing of their
products. However, the company should encourage more corporation among its marketing
managers to reduce under quotation of its products which could adversely affect its ability to
increase profits. Activity Based Costing system would be a great help in GP as it would bring to
light all the overhead costs included in the production process. This then would enable the
company to set a fixed price or a range of price for its products to avoid making losses or
exploiting its consumers through improper quotation of products.

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