Marketing Essentials: Roles, Planning at Sainsbury's Supermarket

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of marketing essentials, focusing on the roles and responsibilities within the marketing function. It examines how these roles relate to the broader organizational context, particularly within Sainsbury's Supermarket. The report compares marketing mix strategies applied by Sainsbury's and Tesco, highlighting their approaches to achieve business objectives. Furthermore, it includes the development of a basic marketing plan for Sainsbury's, outlining key strategies and recommendations for enhancing their market position. The analysis covers marketing research, product development, promotion, sales, distribution, and customer service, emphasizing the importance of interdepartmental coordination for successful marketing implementation and overall business growth.

Marketing Essentials

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................2
P1, M1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.............................2
P2, M2 Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational
context..........................................................................................................................................6
LO2..................................................................................................................................................9
P3, M3 compare the ways in which different organizations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives........................................................9
LO3................................................................................................................................................12
P4, M4 Produce a basic marketing plan for an organization.....................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

LIST OF FIGURE
Figure 1: Marketing Concept...........................................................................................................2
Figure 2: Roles and functions of marketing....................................................................................5
Figure 3: Interrelationship between various departments................................................................7
Figure 4: Extended marketing mix..................................................................................................9

LIST OF TABLE
Table 1: Comparison of marketing in Tesco and Sainsbury's Supermarket....................................9
Table 2: Sainsbury's Supermarket SWOT Analysis......................................................................12

Introduction
Marketing elements highly affects the development and growth of business. In order to get
success, it is important for an organization to understand the need of modification in marketing
strategies. For clear understanding of marketing concept, report has considered Sainsbury’s
Supermarket which is the second biggest supermarket in UK. It provides wide range of products
from grocery to kitchen articles and many more through online and offline stores. Current report
will explain all the roles and functions of marketing manager and interrelation of marketing with
other departments of an organization. It will also compare the marketing mix of Sainsbury’s
Supermarket with Tesco which is multinational grocery store in UK with its branches at several
locations. Last task of the report will help to develop the new marketing plan to achieve business
goals and objectives.
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LO1
P1, M1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
Marketing is the most important technique that helps in achieving end goals and objectives of an
organization. The core responsibility of marketing department in any organization is to create the
positive brand image in the market to gain the competitive advantage amongst the competitors
(Johnson et.al.2017). Core functions of marketing department of Sainsbury’s Supermarket
Supermarket which is a supermarket in UK are to perform the market research, developing the
marketing plan accordingly, promotion and distribution of products, customer relationship as
well as customer services.
Marketing Concept
Marketing Concept is a tool that determines and analyzes the demands of customers in the
market and helps in decision making to lead the market against its competitors. Marketing
concept is based on 5 core concepts and the most important one is the production concept.
Figure 1: Marketing Concept
(Source: Hitesh Bhasin, 2018)
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Production Concept state that customers as per the current trend prefer the cheap products with
high quality and therefore an organization prefer to manufacture bulk of product at lower prices.
Product Concept follows the trend of producing high quality of products irrespective of the
price.
Selling Concept will focus on selling of products to earn profits by heavy promotion of its
products and services.
Marketing Concept mainly focuses on demands of customers, targeting of audiences in market,
gaining profitability as well as advertising and promotion (Gummesson et.al.2014).
The Societal Marketing Concept focuses on identifying the needs of target market and then
delivers high quality of products as compared to its competitors.
Role and Function of Marketing
Various roles and functions of marketing helps to increase the sales and profitability of
Sainsbury’ and assist the team members to understand the core responsibilities in selling its
products and services. The most important role that marketing plays is to maintain the customer
relationship by participating in activities that involves publicity of products and services. It also
helps an organization by taking feedbacks and reviews from customers so that further
improvements can be implemented to its existing and new products to enhance the quality of
products (My marketing notebook, 2018). In addition to these there are many other functions of
marketing department in Sainsbury’s Supermarket which are explained as follows:
Marketing Research: Marketing Department of Sainsbury’s Supermarket is responsible for
conducting the marketing research to identify the needs and demands of target market as per the
current trend. Marketing research will help an organization to collect adequate information about
the specified target market. Marketing manager must focus on identifying the culture, behaviour,
gender, etc of the target market to develop the quality product to meet the demand of customers
as per their desire.
Development of marketing plan: Market Planning plays an important role in accomplishing the
goals and objectives of an organization. For an instance if an enterprise or firm is willing to raise
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its market share of specific product from 20% to 40%, then it is the responsibility of marketing
manager to produce a plan that focuses on production and promotional activities of the product.
Marketing Plan will include resource allocation, steps for accomplishing the goal as well as time
scale involved in each activity.
Development of new products: Designing and development of new products and services highly
influences the rate of selling of product. Attractive and Quality products at affordable prices will
highly attract the customers and will directly affect the sales and profitability of an organization.
Promotion of products and services: Promotion can be defined as communicating the
information in the most attractive manner to encourage them to buy the products and services
being offered (Homburg et.al.2017). Marketing manager at Sainsbury’s Supermarket focus on
advertising, sales promotion, publicity as well as personal selling of products by explaining its
beneficial elements.
Sales and Distribution: Promotion of products and services in the target market helps to increase
the sales and profit margins of an organization. Other than promotion, marketing manager must
co operate sales department to identify the lacking areas which are influencing the sales of
particular product. Distribution is the process in which final goods are moved to the point where
target market can consume it. It is the responsibility of manager to ensure that products are easily
accessible and available to customers.
Customer Services: Customers are assets for businesses and therefore the most important
function of marketing manager is to provide customer satisfaction in each and every possible
manner. Customer Services may include resolving the queries related to products and services,
solving technical issues, after sales services and many more. Customer satisfaction will help in
retention of customers and will help them to form the stronger customer base.
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Figure 2: Roles and functions of marketing
(Source: Author)
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RolesandFunctionsofmarketing

P2, M2 Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational
context.
Marketing Function involves strategy management, sales support, development of product,
identification of financial resources and many more and to perform all its function in aligned
manner, it is important for marketing department to co ordinate with various other departments
of an organization.
Marketing department of Sainsbury will support an organization to identify the current trends
and needs of the customers in the target market. Identification of current trend will lead to
decision making of development of strategies as per the reviews and feedbacks of customers.
Since Sainsbury’s Supermarket operates as a supermarket, marketing manager must focus on
identifying the needs of customers regarding new products and the improvement areas for
existing products. Marketing manager must also focus in identify the offerings of competitors to
analyze its own products and services (Tomczak et.al.2018).
The other most important role and responsibility of marketing is to develop the marketing
strategies as per the current trend in the market. Effective marketing strategies will lead an
organization to achieve goals and objectives. It is the most important part of the business plan
which helps in outlining the ways in which new and existing customers can be attracted.
Marketing Strategies are said to be an effective when the correct audiences are targeted in the
target market as per their mindset and interests. Benefits of developing the marketing strategies
are: enhancement of sale, forming strong customer base, new product and development, increase
in market share, brand establishment, customer relationship, etc.
It is the core responsibility of the marketing department of Sainsbury’s Supermarket to promote
the products and services by using effective tools and techniques to increase the overall sales
and profit of an organization. For any successful business, it is important to communicate about
the benefits of the products to encourage customers to buy (Baker, 2016). For this marketing
department run various promotional campaigns to increase the sales of that particular product. It
is important to use new and advanced techniques of promotion like displaying of products on
social media platforms which is one of the most powerful tools to communicate about products
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and services to its customers at very low cost. Information on website can also be updated on the
regular basis to make aware about new offerings.
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that marketing to a wider
organizational context plays an important role in growth and development of business to a
greater extent in the retail sector.
Significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of an
organization
All the marketing functions for its smooth functioning are backed up by the various departments
like, operations, production, finance, etc for smooth functioning of an organization. Sainsbury’s
Supermarket is a leading supermarket and is expanding its business in all the areas and therefore
it is important for marketing department to link with various other departments for its successful
expansion (Krush et.al.2015).
Figure 3: Interrelationship between various departments
Finance and Marketing Department: It is important for marketing department to co ordinate
with finance department to collect financial information about for launching of new products as
well as for improving of existing products. Marketing Department while taking financial
decisions acts as a supporting department. For all the activities to be implemented like planning,
strategies, promotion, marketing department will be in need of fund which will be fulfilled by the
finance department.
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Production and Marketing Department: Production Department in Sainsbury’s Supermarket is
responsible for development of new products and services and for this they are in need of support
of marketing department. Marketing Department conducts marketing research to know about the
needs and preferences of customers and this information must be conveyed to the production
department for accurate development of products. On the other hand marketing department also
needs all the information of the final product to develop the marketing plan. Therefore for overall
information of inventory and product, it is very important for marketing department to co
ordinate with production department (Kotler, 2015).
Human Resource and Marketing Department
Marketing Department need skilled resources for conducting the marketing research and
development of marketing plan and to fulfill the needs it rely on Human resource Department.
The core function of Human Resource Department is of hiring and selecting the skilled resources
to accomplish the goals and objectives of an organization. Marketing Department must conduct
all the activities as per the set policies by HR department which helps in increasing its brand
name in the market.
Therefore for achieving the goals and objectives of an organization in an effective manner it is
important for marketing department to communicate with other functional units in an
organization.
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