Marketing Essential: Roles, Responsibilities, and Planning for Aldi

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MARKETING ESSENTIAL
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Organisation Overview..............................................................................................................4
LO1............................................................................................................................................5
P1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function...............................5
P2 Explain how the roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider
organisational context............................................................................................................6
LO2............................................................................................................................................8
P3 Compare how different organisations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives....................................................................8
LO3..........................................................................................................................................12
P4 Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organisation..................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................17
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Introduction
The study mostly focuses on the roles and responsibilities of marketing and its functions
through major units of an organisation. In addition, how it helps an organisation interrelate
with the marketing environment and analyse the significance of the marketing functions. The
study also contributes to examine different organisation by briefly evaluating their marketing
mix and marketing process to achieve their business objectives relating to two similar
organisations. Producing a marketing plan helps to understand the marketing goals and
objectives of the organisation, and by monitoring and evaluating the progress, the company
can understand what significant changes are needed to be made in order to increase their
profitability and productivity (Bennett, and James, 2017)
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Organisation Overview
ALDI is the German family-owned discount supermarket chain with around 10,000 stores in
20 countries globally. Two brothers named Karl Albrecht and Theo Albrecht in 1946 founded
it. The company now has a turnover of €50 billion. The company was split into two groups in
1960 and became Aldi Nord headquarters in Essen, and Aldi Sud in Mullen, Germany. The
company now has subsidiaries, which include Trader Joe’s, Aldi Talk, Aldi Liquor, and
Diskont. The total number of employees in the ALDI group is around 32,000. The overall
numbers of Aldi stores are split between Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud (aldi.co.uk, 2019). ALDI
started its operation with a limited assorted concept. Their focus is to provide the most
affordable prices from their competition.
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LO1
P1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function
Market Research
Market Research is the most critical role in the marketing department. Research can help the
marketing department of ALDI to identify customer needs and gain a better understanding of
market opportunities (Mcdonald, 2016). Research the market can also help to understand the
strengths and weakness of their competitors so that the company can take better action in
order to have better profitability. Research is conducted by studying industry reports market
data's or by conducting major surveys (Burns et al., 2014).
Product Development
The marketing department has a significant influence on product development in order to
provide a more improved and innovative product that can attract more customers. The
marketing team of ALDI analyses the sales of exciting product or services and identifies the
gaps in the range of their services in order to keep their product available when any market
opportunities open up. The marketing department also sets the price of their product or
services (Tabatabaei, et al., 2017).
Promotion
After researching the different market needs. The marketing department can provide better
promotion planes for ALDI in order to raise the awareness of their product or services and try
to popularise it through various media platforms. The primary use of promotion is to make
their company unique from the competitors. The development is a type of marketing
communication, which is used to influence the audience to buy their product (Andrews, and
Shimp, 2017).
Sales support
Marketing department main objective is to improve the sales performance of ALDI and
increase the speed of company development. The marketing department can provide better
sales leads by gathering the feedback of their promotions and by offering discount coupons to
the audience. The marketing department can give the company's sales team by preopening
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them about the products details and its advantage over other companies’ product or services
(Ahearne, et al., 2010).
Consumer feedback
Marketing department plans many objectives to develop their communication materials to
promote the company’s products and services. Developing their advertising campaign, they
monitor the input of the consumer about the services ALDI provides. It helps to gather
information from the customers and their buying patterns to ensure better consumer
satisfaction. Parenting any responses from the consumer help, the marketing department
understands the impact of their product and helps them develop their services in a more
effective manner (Celuch et al.,2015).
Budget
The marketing department helps to evaluate the budget and measure the amount ALDI should
spend in order to acquire more consumers and create a better relationship with them.
Budgeting helps the marketing department to strategise better plans accordingly to get better
returns and increase the productivity and profitability of the company. Marketing department
evaluates ALDI's resources and how to uses them to create more effective returns for the
company (McDonald and Wilson, 2016).
P2 Explain how the roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the broader
organisational context.
Finance
A finance department helps to ensure the company budget is in order to develop and keep
their business running. They sit in the most strategic manner of the organisation. They keep
account of the loss ALDI suffered and the profits it made. They also determine how many
finances another department receives and whether the investment will increase the profit or
shrink. While the marketing department help to increase the profits, which leads to an
increase in finances and budget of the company. While the increase in profit helps the finance
department to increase their investment in the marketing department (Malshe and Agarwal,
2015).
Information Technology
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Development in technologies has increased the chances of communication within the market.
IT department has transformed the marketing techniques; new advances have created more
ways to exchange information. The internet has become the central stage to communicate
with new audiences and reach more people around the globe at a much faster rate. IT
department manages the online marketing service of ALDI. Whereas in increase consumers
who want to buy their product without visiting the stores has created more opportunities for
the development of marketing (Maklan et al., 2015).
Human resources
The HR department and the Marketing department work together taking different approaches
to develop their organisation. The HR department provides with the necessary workforce and
helps to recruit better candidates that can contribute to the new marketing ideas of the
department. HR department conducts many pieces of research in order to keep the marketing
department aware of future threats so that the marketing department can be prepared from
any kind of damages it can create. Whereas marketing department helps the human resources
by providing resources for analysing and evaluating. Moreover, help them research the
development of the company (Olson et al., 2018).
Production
The production department creates the company products, and the marketing department
creates a plan to develop the sales of their products. Marketing and the production department
work together to innovative their product or services that can generate better sales for the
company. Marketing department helps to increase sales, which can lead to an increase in
production. The primary connection of the marketing department with the production unit is
that both departments cannot perform without each other (Stevenson and Barnes, 2015).
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LO2
P3 Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives
Marketing mix of ALDI in comparison with ADSA
Elements ALDI ADSA
Product ALDI is a discount
supermarket, which provides
items at more affordable
rates. The products sold at
ALDI are sourced from
specific suppliers and sold as
their own product. The
company sells food products,
beverages, groceries, clothes,
stationery, electronic
products, household goods,
and flexible tools. Also in
Germany, they sell a mobile
network service through one
of their subsidiaries and in
Australia they have 66 self-
serving gas stations.
ASDA contains their product
under 5 categories, each of
which has a separate product
line. They make their
products with a lot of variety
available. They sell their
product that is usually
diffracted from their
customer. Majority their
products are sold under the
brand name ASDA. It
provides a wide variety of
products including fresh
food, grocery, clothing,
home, and entertainment
goods. Customers can buy
fresh, chilled, and frozen
food, drinks, health and
beauty products, laundry and
household products, clothing,
outdoor and entertainment
products, pet products and
many more from ASDA
Price ALDI has a great customer
base due to affordable rates
and quality of their products.
It charges meager rates for
Their current price strategy is
based on competitive pricing
of the industry. ASDA
mostly sells products that are
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the new products so they can
gain an edge on the market
sharing. Many minor
differences in price can make
a huge difference in the
customer's mind. They offer
cheaper rates in the market to
generate more customers in
their stores.
higher quality than their
customers are. Their product
range starts from £0.70 and
goes up to £250. They offer
lower price guarantee than
their competitors.
(Asda.com,2019).
Place ALDI group has around
10,000 stores worldwide, and
new stores keep opening up
most the time. They keep
their store's location. Their
store layout is designed very
thoughtfully where
everything is divided into
proper sections which reduce
the number of employees
needed on every floor.
They distribute their product
through online and through
635 stores over the UK. They
have a different range of
store format that includes
supermarkets, ASDA living,
superstore, petrol filling
station and super centre.
People ALDI does not have an
excellent customer service
than its competitors. The
employees do not assist the
consumer in buying the
product. Unlike other
companies, ALDI has very
faster billing services to
create every transaction
quicker. ALDI provides more
wages to its employees than
the other companies and
better job training for the
Around 160,000 people work
for ASDA the company
offers both on the job and off
the job tainting to develop
their employees. In order to
keep their employees loyal to
the company ASDA
appreciate the effort, they
provide and reward them
with extra £2.04 for
additional hours.
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new candidates.
Promotion ALDI promotes their services
by claiming to be the most
cost-saving strategy. They
invest very less on
promotional activities and
instead focus on saving the
cost to provide many
affordable products to their
customers. ALDI does use
very few use of print,
electronic and other media
just to provide their
consumers with information
about the special buys and
offers
ASDA uses various kinds of
media outlets to promote the
sales of their product. The
company uses different
techniques of sales
promotion as well. It also
uses sponsorship of various
athlete and other talents,
hosts many sports charity,
and aids to create the
audience aware of the
company. they also have a
charitable wing called
"ASDA foundation."
Process ALDI keeps the limited use
of high priced brands in their
store. They buy their
products through various
supplies available locally.
ALDI buys all their products
in bulk to keep them on local
warehouses.
ASDA performs various
activities in order to keep
their business running. They
firstly receive their products
from the supplier and then
organised them in proper
shelves for the customer in
the purchase. Customers pick
their products and go to the
customer assistant to pay.
Customers can also use self-
service machines to make
their payments.
Physical evidence ALDI is known for their
most straightforward
business process. They are
known for providing 30%
ASDA’s physical evidence
includes their logo, which is,
and graphical material of the
company name and green
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cheaper products and keep
the everyday low prices
globally. ALDI has two
different logos for the ALDI
Nord and ALDI Sud. Their
stores are known for
maintaining the same prices
of groceries throughout the
globe
coloured. They also have
their stores and websites
which creates their unique
identity
Table 1: Marketing mix of ALDI and ADSA
(Source: Created By the learner)
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LO3
P4 Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organisation.
o Marketing Plan
Marketing objectives:
 Increase the overall revenue of the organisation
 Increase customer satisfaction
 To develop the existing products according to the existing trend of the market
PESTEL analysis
Political
 There are several political controversies, which are affecting the growth as well as the
development of the organisation including Aldi. There are several stores of Aldi
across the globe including the USA, Europe, China, as well as Australia. Different
countries have different factors, which can affect the revenue of the organisation
severely.
 Since the decision of Britain leaving Europe, there are several firms faced problems
with direct investment and the EXIM taxes have increased a lot, which has affected
the market in the United Kingdom (Anderson et al., 2017)
Economical
 Due to Brexit, there is a breakneck rate of progress for Aldi as the rate of the pound
has dropped however; there is a significant rise in the prices of the products. This has
resulted in Aldi with suitable advantages, as they can sell the products as well as
services in the higher process. This has improved the growth of Aldi significantly in
the last two years.
 The development in the grocery market as per May 2017 was 3.8% per annum. This
concluded that the demand would rise as soon as the market expands.
 Due to the rise in inflation, it is quite natural for consumers to spend less on the
products as well as services outside such as bars, restaurants, as well as malls. Instead,
they will be consuming foods inside their respective residence. This will result in
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