Marketing Functions, Responsibilities and Planning Process for H&M

This report delves into the critical role of marketing within organizations, using H&M as a primary case study. It meticulously examines the key responsibilities of the marketing function, including strategy development, product growth, market research, and communication strategies. The report highlights how marketing departments shape brand identity, drive sales, and foster customer relationships. Furthermore, it explores the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the organizational context, contrasting H&M's approach with that of Zara, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer preferences and adapting to market demands. The report then analyzes the application of the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence) within the marketing planning process for H&M and Zara, demonstrating how these elements contribute to achieving business objectives and maintaining a strong brand image. The report emphasizes the importance of adapting marketing strategies to meet the dynamic needs of consumers and remain competitive in the global market.

INTRODUCTION
In every organisation, the role of marketing is very important. The principles of marketing are
enables for the development of marketing plan. In H&M.com, it is the responsibilities of marketing
department to increases their sales and revenue. It is the duty of every marketing manager to increasing their
market share in order to contributing in their nation’s economy. Marketing helps in developing relationship
between customers andorganisation by offering new range of products. It helps in making wider the
organisation and for that H & M have to includes for elements of marketing mix. Such as price, place,
product and promotion. It is helpful in achieving targets and aims of the organisation (Lamb, Hair and
McDaniel, 2011). Marketing functions are helpful in managing reports and provides a business, a estimation
of its future sales. Organizations wants to reach to defend their market share and with that they wants to be
at the top of customers minds.
TASK 1
P1 Explain the key responsibilities of marketing function
Marketing department plays an very critical role in business mission and its visions. For every
business organisationits is necessary to pre- planned its marketing strategies, it gives confidence to managers
to implement their products in market (Toedt, 2014). In H & M organisation, the roles of marketing
department is to develops their plan and policies, so that it can grew up in compare to Zara or other fashion
industry. It gives shapes to organisation, likes how customers associates business products and services.
There are some roles and responsibilities of marketing department of the organisation. Such are as follows:-
 Strategy Development:- This is the most important responsibilities of marketing managers, to
develops strategies and policies, in order to implement them in business. In H&M, a strategy
helps in increasing number of customers and their profit market sharing. Marketing
department of the company reaches settlement on strategy with the help of senior managers
and board of management team before plans any campaigns. For the profit led business
organisation, marketing is obliging in maximising the revenue of the H & M Company. This
is beneficial for those organisation, whom are based on the number of corporate customers
and clients and more than one parties are involves in decision making process (Jones. and
Rowley, 2011). Strategies also help in providing name and fame to an business organisation
and gives the power of brand development. It is also helpful in to reach a broader
geographical market, to enter in a new sector or to open a new network of product
distribution.
 Product Growth:- Pre planned marketing functions also helpful in developing product growth
and attracts customers towards it. In an profit based business organisation, there are ,any
teams and departments, who works on their product growth, it includes providing quality
products to the customer’s. Marketing department assessing the sales of the present products
and identifies their product range & prices, and figure out the gap between both of them.
Along with this, it provides better opportunities to companies, so that they can compete with
another products or organisations. In the procedure of product development, marketing
department of H & M sets their product price and pre planned estimated sales in launching of
a product or brand. The marketing function is always focuses on branding of the organization
advertising, customer interaction an d attraction and participation in public activities for
brand improvement (Musibau, Oluyinka and Long, 2011). Although, it is the best way to sell
the product, between a wide range of consumers.
 Market Research:– Market research helps in identifying the customer’s needs and wants
better market opportunities, it is the key responsibility of every organisation. When product
is launch, it starts with marketing and ends with marketing, where by managers are founds
the needs of the customers and after introducing the product with customer’s, they are
identifies that it matches with people’s needs or not. It also helps managers to know the
competitors weakness and its strengths, so that they can makes another policies for saves

their existing customer’s. It also improves the cooperation and coordination among
employees and managers, that improves sales and rapidity increases market growth.
Marketing functions helpful in creating events, seminars and exhibitions for the external
publicity of the product and services (Gamble and et. Al., 2011). Marketing also formulates
presentations for sales team and deliveries them with shares of advertising material that gives
them customers prospects and providing them high quality of products.
 Communications:- Communications are back bone of any organisation, they reduces the gap
between customers and their clients. Now they are able to find their customer needs and
wants, produces their products according to customer demand. Marketing department of H &
M, plans operations and develops their communication process to promotes their products
and services. Sometimes they prefer the use of social media accounts and manages them
carefully to find what is being in process. It develops the target market opportunities and
giving them guidance that what kind of products areperceived by customers, it also helps
them in managing their annual budgets and financial reports. These reports and budgets are
providing them to plan their sales and profit, with that any business can become successful in
a very short term period (Lyus, Rogers and Simms, 2011). For H&M , marketing functions
are the base of generating customer loyalty and their retention. Result of it, the function
brings out time to time promotions and campaigns , this has been verified that a successful
business is able to attracts customers easily. So it very essential for every marketing based
organisation to establishesflexible communication with their employees and sales department.
P 2 Roles and responsibility of marketing relate to the organizational context.
Marketing is the term which is used by all the organization to promote their products at the market
place to earn more and more profit by satisfying their customers needs and wants. Basically marketing
included all the internal and external factors which influence the marketing policy of an oragnization. Like
H&M and Zara both are a very famous organization which attract their customers because of qualitative
product in fact both the enterprises believes in the customer satisfaction by introducing new and innovative
products. H&M believes in making product according to the customer taste and preferences so that weaker
sections also able to buy their products due to cheap price (cant, 2010). Whereas Zara is famous for their
expensive product because of their product quality which attracts rich people as due to their expensive price.
Both the company must consider the traditional and modern marketing mix to achieve their company
objective by minimizing losses and maximizing profit. In fact traditional marketing consist of 4 p’s and
modern marketing consist additional of 3 p’s by which an organization try to solve all the upcoming
obstacles in marketing policy.
H&M plays a major role at a market place by performing their responsibilty effectively to attain their
business goals by considering all the relevant data and information which require while playing their role in
front of their competitors. Whereas Zara is also very careful about their roles so that they can fulfil their
customers needs and demands in fact this company manufacture their product according the demand of the
particular product in the market to avoid wastage (hagan, 2011). Moroever to achieve their organization
goals both the organization follow the policy of marketing mix which is very indispensable for enterprise to
build their image at international level.
Here is the 7 p’s of marketing mix:-
 Product :- A product is a either tangible or intangible item like weather it’s a goods and
services that’s called a product for an organization. In fact product is made by the
manufacturer according to the demand of a customer because product is made to satisfy their
customers needs and wants. A product have their own product life cycle started from
introduction stage , growing stage , maturity phase and end with declining stage in the
market place.

 Price :- Price also plays a major role in the product life cycle as according to the price
customer can identify the quality of a product. In fact in today’s creative world most of the
customers are ready to pay extra peny for qualitative product so that it can work for longer
period of time. Basically price is one of the indispensable aspect for every organization
(bivins, 2013).
 People :- Employees are one of the mandatory and useful resource for every organization
because all the other resource are handle by them only as if there is absence of labour then its
not easy to perform any task or activity. Both the companies are most concerned about their
very useful resource due to their very much requirement in the company as all the necessary
things are done by them only.
 Place :- H&M and Zara always try to locate their shops near to the main market so that
customers can reach at a market place without facing any problem regarding location. Simply
place is the term in marketing mix which describe the location of an organization where
there buyers and sellers meet with each other for final consumption of a product.
 Physical evidence :- Physical evidence is the term through which cited company try to attract
their customer by designing their malls with use of various catchy theme like interior
designing. It means the main focus of physical evidences is to catch the attention of publics.
 Promotion :- Promotion deals with the advertising of a product either online pr offline by
using various ways of promoting their product.
 Process :- Process is also known as the appropriate channel for final consumption of a
product.
All the above elements are very indispensable for both the companies to achieve their
organization goals because consideration of all the elements and factors are very mandatory
to fulfil the demand of their clients by satisfying their needs and desires.
TASK 2
P3 Marketing mix to the marketing planning process
Marketing mix is important parts of the marketing which are applied to the marketing planning
process to get achieve maximum business of hennes and mauritz and Zara. Marketing mix includes many
areas which play vital role in the marketing of the organisation like price, product, place, people, promotion
process and the physical evidence (Abell and Hammond, 2009). The marketing mix can be applied to the
marketing planning process so that business of the company. As hennes and mauritz as well as Zara both are
very big brand og the world there is a must need of the marketing mix to maintain the brand image all over
the world and the country in which the mentioned companies operate their business. Following are the
different ways in which the marketing mix can be applied to the marketing planning process-
1. Product- Product is the main part of the business which is to be applied to the marketing planning process
of hennes and mauritz as ell as Zara so there should be main focus on the role and the customisation of the
product according to the demand of the consumers. The product should be according to the way in which the
target customer wants so that the product can satisfy them in term of quality.
2. Place- Place is another important part of the marketing mix as the target customer should get the product
nearest of them to buy. There are many easy way of making product available in the reach of the customer
so that they can shop easily like main market, online shop etc. So the place is also applied in the marketing
planning process.
3. Price- Price is also an important part of the marketing mix which is to be applied to the marketing
planning process(Choffray and Lilien, 2010). The price of the product should be the reasonable according to

the target customer as well the quality of the product so that there will be no over price or under price of the
product of the company. if the price of the product seems to b high in the sight of the customer the n there
will be less marketing of product in the future.
4. Promotion- Promotion which is also applied to the marketing planning process plays the vital part of
marketing mix which is used to make product known in the public. Promotion should be in innovative way
as well as convey the right message of the company to the public regarding product. There are many ways of
promotion of the product like personal selling, social media publicity or hoardings.
5. People- people of the marketing affects the business of hennes and mauritz as well as in Zara from top
level to bottom level in every single activity related to the marketing. People who run the business in every
part of the organisation is also a marketing mix which is applied to marketing planning process.
6. Process- Process is another crucial part of the marketing mix which is applied to the marketing planning
process so that payment and delivery system are best to satisfy the customer so the process should be well
organised.
7. Physical evidence- Physical evidence is the marketing mix which includes establishing the brand image in
the market place (Harris and McDonald, 2014). Though both companies have their own well establishes
brand in the national as well a international market, but there is always need of physical evidence to
maintain the brand. This is also applied to the marketing planning process in which the efforts are made to
create goodwill of the product or brand so that it captures a permanent a positive strong image in the sight of
the customers which leads to benefit the company like the hennes and mauritz as well as Zara.
Thus the marketing planning process is required to have all above marketing mix like people, product, place,
promotion, physical evidence, price and process which plays the most important role in the marketing of the
product as well as its brand. These can be used like tactics for the organisation in the field of the selling and
marketing of the product or can be applied to the marketing planning process for both companies but in their
own different ways.
P4 Basic marketing plan production and evaluation
A strategic marketing plan is the key to success of the business in the organisation. A strategic
marketing plan is a official document paper in which the ideas and information about practical marketing
tactics and techniques are mentioned. The strategic marketing plan is made to make the stable flow of the
business in the hennes and mauritz organisation. In the marketing plan there is analysis of the current
position of the organisation in the market so that appropriate actions can be taken for any lacking area of the
brand. For example the hennes and mauritz produces a marketing plan for a new product. The main
objective of the marketing plan of the company is to introduce the product to target customer in a way that
increased demand of the product can be created (Ford, 2012). The marketing plan will collect the
information about what kind of feature the customer want in that particular product in the market.
Budget for the marketing is calculated in the marketing plan as well as the position of the company
in the market in the industry in which the product is to be introduced in the future so that there will be less
risk in introducing new product. The target customer is the main key of the strategic marketing plan as the
whole business of the organisation depends on the demand or need of the customer. So in marketing plan
there is analysis of the survey conducted regarding product to make the business strategy easy and effective
to increase sale of the product in the long term in future (Sashittal and Tankersley,2007). Thus the
marketing manager of hennes and mauritz produces such a marketing plan that can add to the values of the
brand as well as the organisation in the market place and in the sight of the target customers.

Effective plan is very essential to achieve the target of the company because they believe in fulfilling the needs and
demand of their clients because customers are one of the main and important part at a market place (mcdaniel,
2011). H&M and Zara try to make a proper planning because planning act as a very effective tool for both the
organization as due to the appropriate planning cited company try to estimate the future cost. In fact proper
marketing plan helps the company in decision process due to the availability of correct data and information which is
very helpful while making policies for the company ( hair, 2011). Basically to minimize their losses and to maximize
their profit cited company must go for effective marketing plan before introducing their product in the market by
considering the close substitutes which was already available in the market (simkin, 2013).
For H&M first priority is their clients because they belive in customer satisfaction which shows the policy of
cited company as they are society oriented (lamb, 2011). Whereas Zara first priority is to make qualitative product
because they believe in maximizing their profit by minimizing their losses. In fact Zara main aim is to manufactuer
the quality product to make their customer brand loyal and habitual (dibb, 2013). Moroever planning act as very
indispensable tool for every organization before establishing of any business because with the help of planning a
company can easily estimate their future cost before investing their capital in the plant. So its compulsory for H&M
and Zara to make effective and attractive plan before launching or designing any new and innovative product at a
market place by analysing overall market. As planning is kind of support mechanism for cited company to achieve
their business target and goals.
CONCLUSION
The above mentioned report it has been concluded that marketing is very essential for every
business organisation. Without any marketing activities no one business or profit based organisation cannot
be succeed., the brands and products will not be illuminated and organisation become lifeless for example,
no one customers is attracted with them and they are not able to increases their sales. Organization’s success
is not only determined by the prudent application of funds to the various portfolios of investment but also by
the relationship established with the customers, which is a function of marketing.
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