Marketing Essentials Report: Marketing Essentials for Mark & Spencer

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of marketing essentials, focusing on the role of marketing within a business, as opposed to viewing it solely as a department. It delves into the structure of a marketing department, outlining various marketing roles and responsibilities, with a specific focus on the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and social media manager. The report then explores the marketing process, emphasizing the importance of environmental analysis and the 4-step marketing process. Furthermore, it examines the interrelationship between the marketing department and other key departments within an organization, such as Human Resources, Finance, and Sales, highlighting their collaborative roles in achieving organizational objectives. The report uses Mark & Spencer (M&S) as a case study, illustrating how these marketing concepts are applied in a real-world business setting. Finally, it concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of integrated marketing efforts for business success.

Marketing Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P.1 The role of marketing as a function of business, opposed to marketing as a department in a
company......................................................................................................................................3
P 2. Structure of the marketing department and different types of marketing roles...................4
P 3. Overview of the marketing process and important of environment to marketing function.5
P 4. Interrelationship of marketing department with other different in an organisation ............5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The marketing is a process in which organisation anticipating, identifying and satisfying
the customer needs as well as requirements on time and through which company is been able to
generate the profit (Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). The marketing is the process to creates strong
customer relationship and value to customer. The Mark & Spencer is a retail multinational
British company headquarters is in London. They are specialised in dealing with clothing, home
products and luxury food products. This report includes the functions of marketing to make the
customer aware about the products. The structure of the marketing Mark & Spencer's used
promotes the products and process of the marketing. At last the influence and interrelation of
marketing with other departments in organisation.
TASK 1
P.1 The role of marketing as a function of business, opposed to marketing as a department in a
company.
The marketing enables the company to promotes products through which customer get
aware about the new offerings. The aim of the marketing is exchange the goods and services
between the producers to consumers in a way to satisfying the customer needs. Its started with
identification of customers needs and end when customers need are satisfied. The role of
marketing as function of business are mentioned below,
Planning: First step of marketing is to conduct market research so that customers needs and
preferences would be find out. It assist M&S to plan their business as without launching any
product, company could not acquire customer attention. For instance, M&S will conduct a
research and after that plan their strategies for launching product in the market.
Organizing: In this step, main task of company is to identify all the requirements which is
essential for M&S to launch their product. For instance, M&S would plan regarding
environmental analysis and then different types of strategies which they could use to attract
customers towards their product.
Implementing: After planning company have to implement it on the real scenario to find the
consequences of it. For example, M&S would use penetration pricing for their products and with
that promotions and advertising would be done so to create favourable image within customers

Controlling: This is the last step in which company will analyse response of product after the
launch so that they will modify their products accordingly. For instance, M&S will try to fill out
feedback from users as it would assist them to find out the grievances they are facing.
P 2. Structure of the marketing department and different types of marketing roles
Marketing department is a combination of various types of sub departments as it includes
pricing, new product development, promotions and advertising, market research etc. So CMO is
the one who handles whole department and below them is different types Vice president's who
handles their respective sub department. Different types of marketing role of key persons is
discussed below,
Chief Marketing manager: A CMO is an individual responsible for creating and delivering
things to end customer so that their needs and demands will be fulfilled (Blakeman, 2015).
Individual's primary mission is to make the plan and strategies according to internal and external
environment and disseminate to lower managers so that Marks and Spencer would attain
competitive advantage over other competitors. Apart from that, CMO have to liaison with
different sub departments like sales, market research, NPD so that they can analyse the working
productivity of employees working in Marks and Spencer. Their reporting person is CEO or
COO.
Social media manager: One of the easiest way to connect with customers from all over world is
Social media which means the social media manager is one of the crucial position at M&S as
they are directly representing their company to customers (Pike, 2015). Various role and
responsibilities is given below,
 To maintain brand awareness in the mind of customers by posting different kind of
contents like blogs, videos, audio tracks, photos, feedback from customers etc.
 To boost Search engine optimization and SMM of M&S so that they can reach their
customers easily which leads to generation of leads and sales.
 To take daily feedbacks from their existing and new users and conduct market research
according to the requirements given by the top level managers etc.
 Report all the work to their superior like KPI, budget, recommendation for products,
benchmark etc. Proper communication plays an essential role in achieving pre set goals
of social media team.

P 3. Overview of the marketing process and important of environment to marketing function
It is a 4 step process whose aim is to provide value of money to their customers so that
they will become a loyal customer. Main task is to identify changing needs and demands of
customers and how M&S can fulfil it with their products. Marketing process is elaborated below
in context of M&S,
Situation analysis: Product which company offers is according to the customer needs
and demands through various means like pestle, swot, porters five forces model etc. For instance,
M&S will conduct research for customers so that company would be aware about the internal
demands of customers and then existing product will be modify or new product would be made
accordingly.
Marketing strategy: After the first step, M&S work is to identify strategies which
company could opt to enhance their utilisation of resources to its fullest (Lane, 2015). They have
to find out the target audience through STP approach and after that budget would be made. For
instance, M&S will first find out the potential customers for their product and then plan will be
made that how to generate leads from them.
Marketing mix decisions: In this phase, company will made plan of targeting customers
by using marketing mix techniques like 7P's or 4P's. Company have to make favourable image of
product into the mind of customers through Keller equity model of brand equity. For instance,
M&S would try to show benefits of using product and how their product is better than their
competitors by using advertising and promotions.
Implemented and control: This is the last step of marketing process in which company
have to maintain their brand equity in the market so that they can enhance their profitability and
sales to a certain level (Malhotra, 2015). For instance, M&S will regularly surveying their
customer so to find out the grievances they are facing while using their product. It would assist
them to bring changes in their products accordingly.
M&S have to continuously monitor and analyse the marketing environment as their products and
demand of it is directly depends on that.
P 4. Interrelationship of marketing department with other different in an organisation
Marketing is the core department of M&S as their work is directly related to the
satisfaction level of potential customers. If they are not satisfied then it would be huge blow for
company as their source of income will be blocked., To attain highest productivity in marketing,

all other department has to work with them so that goals and objectives would be achieve.
Interrelationships between different teams are given below with functional example,
Marketing and HR: Role of HR department is to find out the skills and capabilities
which is required in future and then recruit candidates accordingly so to align skills with the
vision of company (Hair Jr and et. al., 2015). For instance, marketing needs those individual who
has mesmerizing interpersonal skills and fluency in speaking while doing sales and if HR recruit
that person who is introvert in nature, then M&S wont be able to achieve what they wanted to in
the starting. Moreover if there is difference between the headcount required and present at the
workplace then it would create a negative impact on M&S performance.
Marketing and finance: Finance department work is to handle the spending of money
by allotting funds with the aim of less expenses and more profit. So marketing department have
to give all their requirements after conducting market research. Moreover they are the who are
working in field for customers, so marketing employees have to knowledge of when to spend and
how to spend so that proper allotment would be done. Besides this, finance helps marketing
department of Marks and Spencer while setting sales targets, price of products, compensation
for employees, planning of budget etc.
Marketing and sales: There is always a confusion between working of sales and
marketing but in real, they are standing at different poles. Working of marketing department is to
understand customers needs and demands and on the other side, sales role is to provide the
product to the potential customer (Baker and Saren, 2016). So both the department is inter
related as one have to work on product and other have to sell it. For instance, sales employee of
Marks and Spencer have to contact to marketing team about the product they have made and
other details like, parts used while making, price of it, who are the potential customers,
specifications of product, etc.
So it can be concluded after presenting all the information that all the departments have to work
together as a team so that Marks and Spencer goals would be achieve with the highest
productivity.

CONCLUSION
So it can be concluded from above report that, marketing is the only department whose
work is to bring revenue in the company so that more profitability and sales would be achieved
by an organisation. It is made up of of specific structure which includes roles and responsibilities
of different types of individual within company like CMO, marketing manager etc. Marketing
process is important for company as it assist them to satisfy customers needs and demands. Other
than that, all the department has to work together and as a team as then only company will
achieve their purpose of existence.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baker, M.J. and Saren, M. eds., 2016. Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.
Blakeman, R., 2015. Advertising campaign design: Just the essentials. Routledge.
Groucutt, J. and Hopkins, C., 2015. Marketing. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Hair Jr and et. al., 2015. Essentials of business research methods. Routledge.
Lane, P., 2015. Human resources marketing and recruiting: essentials of employer branding.
Handbook of Human Resources Management, pp.1-30.
Malhotra, N. K., 2015. Essentials of marketing research: A hands-on orientation. Essex:
Pearson.
Pike, S., 2015. Destination marketing: essentials. Routledge.