Marketing Essentials: Roles and Responsibilities of Marketing Function

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Marketing Essentials
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Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Part A...............................................................................................................................................2
a) Explain how the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function relate to the wider
organisational context......................................................................................................................2
c) Analyse the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the context of the marketing
environment.....................................................................................................................................4
d) Analyse the significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units
of an organisation............................................................................................................................5
e) Critically analyse and evaluate the key elements of the marketing function and how they
interrelate with other functional units of an organisation................................................................5
Part B...............................................................................................................................................6
1) Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives.............................................................................6
2) Evaluate different tactics applied by organisations to demonstrate how business objectives can
be achieved......................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction......................................................................................................................................9
1) Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organization of your choice...................9
2) Produce a detailed coherent evidence- based marketing plan for an organization...................9
3) Design a strategic marketing plan that tactically applies the use of the 7Ps to achieve overall
marketing objectives......................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
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Task 1
Introduction
The following report has considered the organization of Burberry for the analysis of the
marketing roles and responsibilities in the broader organizational perspective. The functions
implemented in the organization of Burberry and how they benefit in the growth of the company
are determined. The interrelationships of the diverse functions of the organization are provided.
In the second section, the comparison of two different companies is taken by the methods of the
marketing mix.
Burberry is an organization, which serves on luxury goods to the public. It plays the role of
manufacturer, wholesale service providers and even as retail chains (Kingdom, 2019). The
headquarters is situated in London, United Kingdom. Annual turnover is 419 million pounds.
Part A
a) Explain how the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function relate to
the wider organisational context.
Marketing can also be defined as the progression of identifying, selecting, development of
products in order to meet the basic needs of the clients. There are various functions of marketing
functions that help in understanding the present status of the market, meeting the basic needs of
the consumers, making a proper approach for marketing, offering high-quality products and
services, maintaining a better relationship with the customers as well as the workers and others
(Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). There are a number of different types of marketing approach that
are followed by the marketing team of Burberry include scope strategy, pricing and distribution
strategy, and product promotion strategy.
Proper product distribution
The management team of Burberry try to share the entire product Information among all the
customers after production. There are various steps that come under delivery or distribution of
the product, which includes testing of the product, packaging and finally product distribution. All
the stages are interconnected with each other. After manufacturing the product, the development
cell of Burberry send the product to the suppliers and then the suppliers send that to the
customers according to the burden of the customers.
Make a proper market analysis
The Marketing team of Burberry perform complete market research and try to recognize the
basic needs of the customers. After collecting all the data, the team of Burberry make a report
based on that raw data and send it to the development cell. After that, the production department
tries to incorporate necessary alterations according to the customer’s needs. Apart from that,
collecting completely market-related information also helps Burberry to understand its present
position and the status of its competitor.
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Promotion of product
The term promotion can be defined as the progression of launching a new product in the market.
The main motto behind the promotion a product is to launch a new as well as an innovative
product in the market in order to improve the sales volume and attention of customer (Kotler et
al., 2018). There are two types of promotion techniques used by Burberry, online promotional
technique and offline promotional technique. Moreover, in the case of Burberry, the production
team includes communication with the knowledgeable clients and tells them about the new
product offered by them along with different discounts offers and others.
Relationship management along with customer service
The marketing department of Burberry tries to keep a good relationship with the workers as well
as the clients. If the company is able to sustain a good relationship with the consumers then it
will enhance the overall growth and sales of the company. Moreover, if the customers are
satisfied with the services and product then they will come again and suggest the products to
others (Geetha et al., 2017). In order to keep a good relationship with all the customers and
workers, the marketing team of Burberry communicate with each employee and customers and
try to identify their problems and use advanced technologies to resolve the difficulties.
Moreover, the customer support executives also communicate with the clients if they encounter
any problem during working with products.
b) Explain how the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing relate to the wider
organisational context.
The roles and responsibilities of marketing of the organization, Burberry mostly entail
advertising, promotional events and other endorsement tactics. The retail-marketing
professionals try to close the sale the moment a customer steps into the store. The increase in the
footfalls of customers determines the success of the marketing campaigns (Dioko, 2016).
Techniques like offering incentives and other devices of navigation help in the sale of increased
products and other services. The responsibilities of marketing are elaborated in detail as follows:
Support advertising
The advertising processes in the retail industry helps in the development of the national economy
as well as regional and local economies. The marketing tactics involved in this kind of
advertising relationships with the customers through the enhancement of the displays of the
clothing inside the departmental stores so that the customers can get a view of the clothes and
other products within one go and thereafter develops the interest to buy them.
Sale of the drive category
The manufacturers of the retail products and services, like, Burberry categorizes their items
depending on the kind of item the customers prefer to see. The categorization of the products is
done based on the type of clothing, fashion accessories and so on. It becomes easier for
customers to find out their desired items (Song et al., 2017) The Company, Burberry also aims to
become a “category leader” amongst the competitors. By developing itself as the category leader,
the organization can determine how much space can be allocated for the increase of the same
products inside the stores.
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Tactics of cross selling and up selling
The role of marketing is also to increase the cross-selling and up selling prospects of the products
of the organization of Burberry (Westra, 2015). Here, the role of marketing is to sell a different
variety of a product to an existing customer or sell a more expensive item to the same. In specific
seasons, the cross selling initiatives are undertaken, where the customers buy the extra
merchandise due to the offered discount rates and other added benefits. The activities
implemented for the cross-selling characteristics helps in increased revenue generation, improve
the efficiency of the sales, develops loyalty factor of the customers, and causes a reduction in the
operational costs (Johnson and Friend, 2015).
For improving this kind of marketing, certain things are considered by the marketing experts like
helping the customers to quickly purchase the products without waiting for long queues. The
recommendations must be reduced as much as possible as this irritates the customers and they
tend to lose their interest in shopping. While cross selling and up selling, the consumers are
always offered the products that are in relevance to their shopping, lists and the need to buy the
product are justified to the buyers.
c) Analyse the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the context of the marketing
environment
In the marketing environment of the organization of Burberry, the main role and responsibility of
the marketing field are mentioned as follows:
Navigations of the customers
The marketing processes in retail industries, like Burberry involves the customers to view the
products positioned in the aisles and signage of the categories helps the customers to navigate
through the entire store base. This kind of navigator processes helps the busy customers to easily
obtain their preferred items without wasting too much time on exploring all the other irrelevant
items. The marketing experts state that any shoppers spend far less than four seconds to make the
decisions of their purchase. Thus, the establishment of the categories helps to make their choices
faster and increase the revenues of the organization.
This is the strategy of marketing which focuses on the positioning of the products, such that the
most expensive items are at eye level of the buyer and the less pricing product are located way
behind in the aisle (Luchs et al., 2015).
The marketing department mostly emphasizes on the premium customers for increasing their
sales and accrue more profit margins. The company promotes their services by ensuring the
customers that the comfort level in their lifestyles would increase and thus, it would become
much easier.
Customer relationship management
The management of the relationships of the company with the customers accelerates the
profitability as well as the brand value of the organization of Burberry. Here, all the relevant
information of the buyers are gathered and based on this market research, the designing of the
products are undertaken. The tool of the CRM plays an integral role in the advertising,
promoting and other exhibitory events for attaining adequate knowledge of the customers (Notta
and Vlachvei, 2015). Any mismatch of the production of goods and services with the choices of
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the customers would cause devastation for the growth of the organization of Burberry. Thus,
understanding the tastes of the potential buyers is the primary goal of the marketing experts
working for the chosen organization.
d) Analyse the significance of interrelationships between marketing and other
functional units of an organisation
There are several operations present in the retail industry, Burberry, which functions altogether
to make more profits and develop a competitive edge in the target market. These can be stated as
employees who supervise the atmosphere of the stores, handles the cash, enables security and
safety protocols, hires efficient employees, promotes superior customer service, integrates
policies of visual merchandising, and organizes training programs for increasing the productivity
of the employees and the staff who administer the inventory and other stock holdings
(Karnaukhova and Polyanskaya, 2016).
All these functions are interlinked in order to ensure that the operations are undertaken as per the
market research undertaken by the marketing experts. For instance, the finance department
determines the budget that is going to be needed for the marketing processes and the expenses
incurred during advertisements. The production department says in touch with the marketing
processes to make sure that need based products are created.
The interrelationship of these functions facilitates the company to improve the productivity range
and incur more revenues (Folinas and Fotiadis, 2017). Each of the departments work for the
overall growth of the company and thus staying united is a crucial factor.
e) Critically analyse and evaluate the key elements of the marketing function and how
they interrelate with other functional units of an organisation
There are certain advantages and disadvantages when an organization, like Burberry, integrates
features of marketing for improving the exposure of the products and other merchandise to the
customer.
Advantages
● By incorporating tactics of marketing, the company of Burberry develops the recognition
level of its fashion brands and thus stands tall in the extended competition. As per
Griffitts, (2016), the logos developed by the organization helps the customers to
remember the brand associated with the preferred product. Therefore, they choose
Burberry during the time of purchase.
● The sales of the products get increased due to the heightened investment in the activities
of marketing. Increased sales boost revenues by satisfying customers. The sense of
belonging and the productivity of the employees also reach a new level.
Disadvantages
● There are increased costs associated with the functions of marketing of Burberry. Any
kind of wrong marketing may cause failure for the entire business. The company may
also lose its reputation due to misguidance in the strategies of marketing. Therefore, the
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costs should be kept as low as possible during the initial period and the potential of
product development is analysed in the first place.
● The small business organizations are incapable of spending a lot of time as well as money
for the intricacies of marketing. Soltani and Navimipour (2016) stated that spending more
time on the marketing processes significantly reduces the time needed for the actual
business transactions.
Although there are advantages in the interrelations of the functional units of Burberry, like
increased productivity and better work culture. There are certain disadvantages, like increased
conflicts among the members of different departments, misunderstandings of the priorities of the
operational heads. This results in lessened product development and thereby loss in the business.
Part B
1) Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives
The organizations chosen for the purpose of comparison, based on the factors of the marketing
mix are Burberry and Alexander McQueen. The latter organization is situated in London, United
Kingdom and is a fashion brand (Alexander McQueen | Designer Fashion and Luxury Clothing.
2019).
Marketing mix
For developing a marketing plan, the earlier of the market conditions of the industries, Burberry
and Alexander McQueen has been provided. The factors involved in the marketing mix are the
product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence (Walliman, 2015).
Product the products developed by Burberry are for beauty and accessories of men, women and
children. Products like scarves have been recently started by the organization to engage more
customers. Burberry weekend, Burberry Touch and Burberry Brit are the perfume brands of the
organization.
The organization Alexander McQueen develops the varieties of products so as to increase the
ranking of the company in the retail market. The warranty period of the products ensures that the
customers feel attracted to the brand. The return policy of the organization is highly flexible,
which makes the customers free to buy the goods.
Price the pricing tactics used by the organization of Burberry are of premium quality. However,
the company to accrue more profits has targeted all the product ranges of high and low-cost
variables. It does not change the price rates in fear of losing their existing customers.
Alexander McQueen offer discounts in the prices as well coupons, which makes the consumers
develop a trust on the merchandise (Meyerson, 2015). The company compares the costs with
other organizations and thereafter forms its pricing strategies.
Place there are over 475 stores of Burberry located in 50 countries all over the world. The
locations are decided in such a manner that the populous areas have been targeted. Also, the
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online presence of the organizations further causes an increase in the sales margins. The
boutiques are relatively less of Burberry.
The locations selected by the company of Alexander McQueen have been selected based on the
traffic congestion in the consumer market. The costs incurred due to the advertising processes
are relatively high. The online sites are other modes of selling, where the customers are given the
option to buy the products by sitting at home.
Promotion Burberry targets its advertisements in reputed magazines, television, brochures,
billboards, hoardings and many more. The rise in digital marketing helped the organization to
communicate in a more effective manner (Chaffey and Allen, 2015). Moreover, viral marketing
is another way of promotional tactics.
Alexander McQueen advertises through billboards, hoardings, prints and social websites.
Broadcasting in the national and international channels also increases the scope of the business
growth. In times of occasions and seasons, low pricing offers are made to maintain the sales
volumes (Laudon and Laudon, 2016).
People Burberry creates a positive environment, where the employees feel free to make
improvisation in their job roles. The HR of the organization ensures that the expectations of the
employers are clear to the employees and vice versa. The customers are treated in a special
manner so that they feel inclined to visit the stores repeatedly.
Alexander McQueen considers the people, who are the employees and the customers. The staffs
are given the opportunity to work in flexible shifts and they can avail all the benefits regarding
their health and emotional aspects (Brychkov and Domegan, 2017). The customers are provided
with good quality products at cheaper prices.
Process the processes used in the retail industry, like Burberry are managing the supply chain,
creating the layout of the stores, provide offers to the customers and develop strategies for
marketing.
The brand, Alexander McQueen, functions in various processes, like handling the baggage
counter, maintaining the ambience of the store, activities in the billing processes. Home delivery,
parking facilities are the extra operations performed within the industry.
Physical evidence the customers of Burberry are regularly informed about the new product
launches of designer wears (Garrido-Moreno et al., 2015). The e-stores of the company make the
experience of shopping more the buyers are engaged in different events by making them sign on
the webinar forums or avail free trials.
The company, Alexander McQueen improves the experiences of the customers by sharing the
resources of the company on the company websites. The annual reports shared with the
consumers also enable the organization to attain the trust worthiness.
2) Evaluate different tactics applied by organisations to demonstrate how business
objectives can be achieved
The techniques used by the organization of Burberry to achieve the business objectives are as
follows:
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● Set SMART goals
Here, the objectives of the organization of Burberry are set by considering factors such as
specificity of the tasks, measuring the capability, actions related to the goals, relevancy of the
objectives and the time lines within which the objectives are met.
● Improve the sales
The primary objective of an organization of Burberry is to heighten the sales level of the
company (Kotoua and Ilkan, 2017). This further increases the profitability of the business and
augment the brand value in the mindset of the customers. The efforts in the marketing processes
should ensure that more number of customers get to know about the standard of the clothing
products and the unique designing, which other competitors are not providing.
● Increase the awareness of the product
Making explanatory videos about the products in the form of advertisements, the organization of
Burberry increases the awareness factor of the goods that are to be sold to the customers. Here,
the public are made clear about why the products of Burberry have a stronger potential of
satisfaction than other brands of the same industry.
The awareness of the services helps in the decision making power of the customers and thus, the
company can develop its market share and create increment in the sales quantity (Babiuk et al.,
2015).
● Targeting the new customers
The use of social media is an effective tactic to target new customers as well as keep updated the
existing customers. The evaluation of the competition is done in this phase, and thereafter, the
choices of the customers are known based, on which the products are developed (Koh et al.,
2016).
Conclusion
From the aforementioned report, it can be stated that marketing is an essential factor for the
growth of the organization of Burberry. The factors, which influence the growth of the company,
are determined. The various functional roles of marketing and the linkage of the different
organizational departments are analyzed. The comparison of two fashion industries, namely
Burberry and Alexander McQueen helped in the evaluation of the different factors of the
marketing mix.
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Task 2
Introduction
In this part of the report, a marketing plan has been established for the organization of Burberry,
to make more productivity in the business. The marketing plan helps in satisfying the needs of
the customers and thus enhances the recognition of the company in the target market. The use of
marketing mix and the 7Ps model helped the organization of Burberry to make more innovations
in the development of the products. Further, the objectives set by the organizational members can
be met with the help of the plan of marketing.
1) Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organization of your choice
Marketing Plan
The marketing plan helps in forming the marketing strategies of the business organization of
Burberry. The goals are set beforehand while undertaking the functions of the business. The
analysis of the situation is essential so as to form an effective marketing strategy. The tactics
involved in the sales prospects, training programs, managing the responsibilities, offering
promotional opportunities and other productive approaches are handled while forming the
marketing plan.
Purpose of the marketing plan
The main goal of the marketing professionals of Burberry is to make a comprehensive business
plan that would give clarity to the demands of the customers and other stakeholders. Before
making a marketing plan, the company, Burberry has to carefully analyze the present situation,
identify the tactics of the competitors, and locate the target markets that would be the most
suitable for the revenue generation of the business. It is necessary for the organization to
understand how the clothing varieties developed by the organization would meet the necessities
of the premium as well as the middle class customers (Fine, 2017).
The main purpose of the organization of Burberry to formulate the marketing plan is to obtain
more profits as compared to the competitors, gain a competitive edge and expand the company in
the global market. Therefore, it becomes detrimental that the company thoroughly assesses the
opportunities and threats that would affect the growth of the business. The creation of the budget
is an important factor based on which the company implements all its actions for the
development of the business.
2) Produce a detailed coherent evidence- based marketing plan for an organization
For developing the profits of the business, the organization of Burberry has to develop certain
business objectives. Improving the standard and the status of the business is the primary goal of
the business of Burberry. The main objectives of the company are given as follows:
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● Increasing the profitability of the business
● Gain superiority in the competitive industry
● Expand the business in the global and a broader perspective
Competitive analysis of the company in the target market
The analysis of the competition of the retail business of Burberry can be done with the help of
Porter’s five forces, which are given as follows:
Threat of new entrants the new entrants brings innovative methods of product development and
therefore the organization of Burberry gets pressurized due to the influx. The clothes produced
by the new start-ups comprises of new designs, which Burberry has been unfamiliar with.
Therefore, the customers feel inclined to buy the items of the new companies. Thus, in order to
make the brand of Burberry maintain the same reputation in the customer base, it has to make
strategies in order to establish create designs that would help in the retention of the customers. It
should invest more on the research and development activities, where the likes of the customers
can be thoroughly understood.
Power of suppliers- suppliers plays a critical role in reducing the profit margins of the company,
Burberry. These suppliers are able to extract large prices from the companies and therefore lower
the product quality of the brands. Thus, Burberry can tackle this issue by making terms with
different suppliers.
Power of buyers the organization on developing increased customer base, can reduce the
bargaining power of the buyers. The promotion of the new products also helps in attracting
enlarged and premium customer relationships.
Threat of substitutes the power of the substitutes are quite high in the fashion retail industry.
Different companies offer lower prices for the same design of clothes.
In order to overcome the challenges of the substitutes, Burberry should focus on being more
efficient in providing better services and not just develop the range of products. By gaining
insights regarding the core necessities of the consumers and improving the switching costs of the
buyers can help a lot.
Competitive rivalry the rivalry present in the retail companies are huge, as all the companies are
striving for their own respective industries and making innovations in the production of the
clothes. Thus, creating differentiation enables the company to stand out in the competitive
market.
3) Design a strategic marketing plan that tactically applies the use of the 7Ps to achieve
overall marketing objectives
The marketing mix helps in attaining the objectives of the company, Burberry and therefore
facilitate in effectively forming the marketing plan. The 7Ps are categorised as follows:
Product: the profitability of the company, Burberry can be developed by producing innovative
clothing varieties and retaining the quality level of the goods as compared to the competitors.
Price: in order to achieve competitive advantage, the organization has to implement the strategy
of lowering the prices to gather more customer base. This reduction mainly happens during lean
seasons.
Place: the company sells its products as wholesalers as well as retailers. Both offline stores and
online websites are the places from where the customers can avail the buying options.
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Promotion: the promotional tactics of Burberry in social networking sites helps in making the
customers more aware of the products that can be purchased from the stores of Burberry.
People: quality training of the employees of Burberry benefits in functioning as more effective
customer service organization. The buyers are treated with a polite behaviour and they are
guided at every level of their shopping endeavour.
Process: the processes involved in the retail chain of Burberry are manufacturing, marketing,
accounting and so on.
Physical evidence: the free offers, hygienic trial rooms and soothing music creates a relaxing
environment for the shoppers who therefore feel interested to visit again.
Action Plan
Action Priority Timeline Details
Innovation in the
products
High 4 months Market research
Training to the staff High 3-5 months Knowledge in
customer service
Infrastructure
development
High 6 months More stores,
incorporating
technological gadgets
Table 1: Action Plan
(Source: Created by the Learner)
Budget
Expenditure Low High
Infrastructure ￡40,000 ￡60,000
Recruitment ￡50,000 ￡70,000
Technologies ￡55,000 ￡70,000
Table 2: Budget
(Source: Created by the Learner)
Conclusion
In the formatted report, it can be determined that marketing plan can be developed with the help
of model of marketing mix. For the planning process, the objectives are set based on which the
promotional and advertising processes are undertaken. The 7Ps that has been discussed further
played a beneficial role in the analysis of the seven factors that makes the company rise in its
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