Marketing Essentials Report: Marketing Functions and Interrelations

This report provides a comprehensive overview of marketing essentials, focusing on the key roles and responsibilities within a marketing function. It delves into the interrelationships between marketing and other organizational units, highlighting the importance of these connections for achieving business objectives. The report examines the application of the marketing mix across different organizations, using Unilever as a case study to illustrate practical strategies and tactics. It covers topics such as listening to customer needs, developing strategic marketing plans, and utilizing various marketing tools. The report also discusses the significance of brand value, communication, and the overall impact of marketing on sales, customer relationships, and competitive advantage. The document explores the marketing environment and provides an evaluation of basic marketing plans, providing a valuable resource for understanding the core principles and practices of modern marketing.

Marketing Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1. Key roles and responsibilities of marketing functions..........................................................1
P2. Roles and responsibilities of marketing related to large organizations.................................3
M1 roles and responsibilities of marketing in context of the marketing environment................5
M2. Significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of an
organization..................................................................................................................................5
P3. Comparing the ways to apply marketing mix in different organization to attain business
objective.......................................................................................................................................5
M3 Evaluation of different tactics applied by organization to demonstrates the business
objective ......................................................................................................................................9
P4. Evaluation of basic marketing plan of an organization (Covered in PPT)............................9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the department of an organization which is responsible for activities &
process of offering, diverging, interacting & making a value for client, partner and for
consumers. Marketing is related to the art to make, explore and deliver commodity according to
the need of consumer as well as for earning profit. This report will cover the various role and
responsibilities of marketing, interrelation of marketing with other departments of the
organization, various tactics used by the organization in order to achieve their goals successfully.
Moreover, this report covers the essentials of the marketing plan for the smooth flow of its
various operations within the organization.
P1. Key roles and responsibilities of marketing functions
Every company needs a perfect marketing strategies to grow in a particular direction.
Unilever is one of the most famous and successful brand across the world and the growth ratio is
beyond the reach of other companies because of the better marketing planning. There are several
key roles and responsibilities of marketing function are as follows -
 Listening to customers needs
To grow the company in this competitive environment, organization needs a perfect marketing
strategy to connect the clients and building up the strong relationship with customers for the long
term (Pike., 2015). Unilever follows the following plan to receive the customer's attention -
◦ Internal channels
The market survey is essential to know the current market needs of customers and Unilever
works in same way and completely focused on the local market to establish the stores in the local
areas. This gives the relevant customer response.
◦ External channels
Company search and perform actions to get attention of the customers and one satisfied customer
always helps in converting others to customers (Babin and Zikmund., 2015).
 Track trends and monitor competition
Tracking and monitoring the market is necessary because it helps in getting the new leads and
also helps in knowing the current market trends. Unilever is the biggest market capturing
company and also expanding in the remote areas where people are not able to get the food and
Unilever also run some social campaign that attracts the customers and helps them in getting the
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natural products and the main benefit of capturing the market is that it helps in knowing the
threats that can ruin their market (Larson and Draper., 2015).
 Work and brand value
Brand is not just a word, it defines whole company and decides the future of the company, what
type of products and services the company is delivering. Unilever is one of the top consumer
goods company that works on their brand value and not only Unilever, other companies also
focuses on the brand value and clean brand strategies helps in focusing on the mission and vision
and also save the time and money (Perreault., 2018).
 Searching for new marketing tools
Nowadays, companies are adopting a different marketing tools that automatize the company's
process -
◦ Product management
There are many management tools or software that identifies the management routine. According
to the survey, Unilever uses the tools for project tracking such as the Basecamp and the user
feedback software to get the reaction of the customers about the products and services and this
type of management tools helps in improving the productivity of the company (Muralidharan and
Raval., 2017).
◦ Marketing Automation tools
The automation tools boost up the performance of an organization and Unilever uses the best-in-
class automation software SAP, Business continuity Services (BCS) and the software organizer
that takes the audit data and matches it with the original company's software license. Unilever
also uses the service which is Global Software library contains the database of 200,000 software
products.
◦ Product information management tools
It is also known as PIM, which tracks the real time collection of the product at a time and also
tracks the storing, analyzing, and distribution of the products in the market. Unilever also uses
some PIM tools such as EIGER, PRoMPT which is the risk management tool that identifies the
risk and he causes of the product and gives the green signal to the product (Puddle., 2015).
 Communicate with the rest of the company
The communication is the most important key to get success in every field. The common goal of
every company is to maximize the profit. If the base is weak of any company, then it is very
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difficult to grow in the future. The benefits of the communication is the seamless collaboration
with the other companies know their mission and vision and can work together to achieve the
common goal and the ability of manage the multiple conversation and the communication also
helps in eliminating the long-distance barriers.
 Helps in improving the Sales process and Customer
The main responsibility of the marketing department is to know the customer's reaction about
product and services and the best method to know the consumers is to connect with them directly
and helps in knowing their feelings (Rudden., 2016).
 Establish strategic marketing plans
Every company needs a better strategic planning in order to grow in future for the long term.
Unilever believes in profitable and responsible growth. This helps the company in meeting the
customer's need and also act responsibly with the finite number of resources. The better
marketing strategies helps to achieve sales, consumers insight, collaboration, innovation, better
sourcing and manufacturing.
So, these are some key rules and responsibilities of marketing functions.
P2. Roles and responsibilities of marketing related to large organizations
Marketing plays an important role in the selling products and improvising the existing
services. Marketing has different roles and responsibilities related to wider organization i.e.,
Unilever. The main goal of marketing is to collect the information of the customers and analyze
the current market trend and also marketing helps in achieving the target and the objective of the
company by making the different plans (Stanford., 2017).
If marketing related with the case of developing and designing the product, marketing
plays a major role. Unilever connects with the bigger brands that attract the customers and of
course, customers always goes with the famous brands. Marketing also helps in improving the
packaging and the quality of the product because customers firstly focus on the product packing
and then the quality. Quality always matters and the people are now more aware about the health
and uses the natural products that is beneficial for their health. Marketing also develops the
advertisement that attracts the customers and advertisement is the main factor that directly
impacts on the mind and force to buy the product and one of the most important factor is the
brand value that the Unilever have and this gives the unique identity to the company and the
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brand value is the only reason the Unilever is the most popular and successful company in the
world (Lane., 2016).
The roles and responsibilities of marketing management is to ensure the success of
company for the long term. The marketing management of Unilever always works on
improvising the various functional areas such as product quality, customer service, research and
development, production and finance that directly relates with the development of an
organization. All these functional areas helps in determining the profit and loss ratio and decides
the future goals of the company. Marketing management sets the different types of business
development strategies for the development of better quality product. If, any company launches a
new product in the market then to make the customers aware about the product, companies take
help of the local marketers or vendors to promote the product in the market. But the main trouble
behind this situation is how to convince the customers to buy the product, then companies uses
the digital marketing platform to promote the product among the customers and users are more
connected with the online platform as compare to the offline market. Marketing plays an
important role in building the reputation. The marketing management knows that how to deal
with the marketers to publicize the product in the market and this needs a better marketer who
understand the needs of an organization. The customer satisfaction with the better loyalty
(Nirschl and Steinberg., 2018).
Unilever always focuses on the developing market because this gives the better hike to
the company and the under developed market always pays a proper attention on the new products
and marketing strategies helps in setting fair prices, appropriate changes in prices by preparing
the right marketing approach. The marketing strategies of Unilever is very strong and marketing
creates demand and demand is completely related with the supply and increased demand
encourage the production and distribution process and this increases or boost up the income level
and also gives the better employment opportunities. Marketing is important in beating the
competitors. Marketing management keeps on researching the new market trends and the steps
taken by rival company to understand their marketing plans and the what will be the next step of
the competitors to sell the product and the promotional activities to promote the product (Bhatt
and Gupta., 2018).
The roles and responsibility of the marketing functions consists of marketing
communication with the other organization and the customers and creates the positive image of
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company. The main responsibility of the employees of Unilever is to give the better quality
product and services to the customers and to get the positive reaction from the customers that
will be beneficial for growth of company in the future (Purvis., 2015).
M1 roles and responsibilities of marketing in context of the marketing environment
The researching & development of marketing plan is the responsibility of marketing
department in an organization. There are various roles and responsibility are performed by the
marketing officials for the growth of the organization. Meeting customer needs wants & needs,
economic growth, management of demands, creating utilities, the best product offering, adapting
the right price & widening the market are the various roles performed by marketing department
in an organization.
The various responsibilities of marketing department are: listening to the needs of the
customers, defining strategic marketing plans, managing market budgets and calculation of
return of investment, helps to improve sales processes & customers, communication with the rest
of the company, innovations, coordinating with the marketing partner of the company, searching
for new marketing tools & tracking the latest trends & monitoring competitions (Babin and
Zikmund., 2015).
M2. Significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of an
organization
Production/ operations / logistics, research & development, customer services provision,
IT (entrants, intranets & websites), human resources & functions within the organization are the
various interrelations between marketing & other functional units of the organization. Marketing
is almost interrelated to each department of the organization as marketing is the art of making the
product, exploring the need of the product as well as offering or delivering the best product to the
desired consumer. Thus, marketing is interrelated with each department of the organization for
obtaining the business mission effectively (Pike., 2016).
P3. Comparing the ways to apply marketing mix in different organization to attain business
objective
Unilever is the most popular and successful brand across the world. Unilever meets the
everyday needs of customers related to nutrition, hygiene and the personal care and this is the
reason which makes the Unilever a top brand. Unilever is the UK based consumer goods
company and their customers are of every age group. Unilever uses the 7 golden rules of
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marketing to achieve the long term goals. The 7 P's of marketing mix used by Unilever is
product, promotion, price, place, process and physical evidence. Unilever has the better
knowledge of customers and the market. Unilever understand the demand of customers
according to the current market trends and the Unilever is connected with the several popular
products related to healthcare, beauty and the food and beverages and having millions of
turnover of every year. Unilever set the price of any product according to the market competition
and as per the geographical segment because geographic segment is the only factor which
decides the selling ratio of the product and several companies uses the natural products and this
can impact on selling of the company (Perreault., 2018).
The distribution network of Unilever is very strong and the connection with the local
suppliers and the capturing of the strongest market is the main strength of Unilever. Government
also supports the Unilever to promote the products and services in the rural areas to make them
aware about the products and the social campaign and these kinds of social campaign helps to
company to understand the current marketing condition in the rural areas.
Unilever spends money on advertisement on television and on the local newspaper and
sometimes organizes the events in schools and college to know their views about the products
running in market and how the Unilever is best among all the companies. There are several
consumers goods and services are established in all over the world. The process of selling the
product and the strategies of Unilever to build up the customers is unique that makes it different
from other companies. The main motive of The Unilever is to provide the product to every
customers and their products should be in reach of everyone and the logo of Unilever is enough
that tells everything about Unilever which defines the core values of the company and the
symbol of Unilever “U” contains the brand from shampoo to ice-cream, a jar, tea leaf, hand and
so many other day to day life things (Muralidharan and Raval., 2017).
7 P's of marketing Mix
Unilever is the most famous consumer goods company of UK and the every famous
company have their competitors and the Unilever is also having several competitors and one of
the most famous competitor of Unilever is Reckitt Benckiser. The comparison in between these
companies according to the 7 P's of marketing mix are given as follows -
Different Marketing Mix Unilever Reckitt Benckiser
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Product
Unilever categorize the
consumer goods such as Foods
and beverages, healthcare
products, Home care and the
water purifiers and about 400
products are currently running
in the market which shows the
strength of Unilever in the
market and Unilever
concentrates on the most
famous brands of Unilever i.e.,
Axe, Dove, Rexona,
Hellmann's, Lipton, Surf,
Magnum, Knorr, Heartbrand
and Omo. These are the best
and the most profitable
products of the Unilever and
the turnover of Unilever from
all these products is
uncountable (Stanford., 2017).
The Unilever always comes up
with the new and innovative
technologies.
Reckitt Benckiser offers the
products and services in
health, hygiene and the home
care products. The several
brands are connected with the
Reckitt Benckiser are Enfamil,
Strepsils, Gaviscon,
Nutramigen, Dettol, Lysol,
Mortein, Airwick, Vanish,
Calgon and several other
products and each of these
brands are having their own
variants and packaging and
combines with the latest
knowledge of market and
consumers requirement and
have a global research and
development departments
across the world for the
innovation of products.
Price
The second marketing mix of
Unilever is Price and Unilever
always works on the
satisfaction of customers and
also believes in high quality
and low price. It is necessary
to the competition in FMCG
market across the world.
The price is the top most
priority of Reckitt Benckiser
and this organization adopts
the best price of the products
that is suitable for the
customers. There are several
products and brand of the
companies which generates
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Unilever decides the price
according to the current
market price and the
competition with the different
companies. Unilever fixed the
prices of the final products and
buys the products and get the
profit from their margin.
more than 70% of the revenue
every year and having the
superior marginal plans which
gives the best results. The
another strategy for the better
profit generation is to focus on
developing the economies with
the customer's satisfaction
(Lane., 2016).
Place
Unilever uses the different
ways to sell the products that
can be either tradition or the
modern way. Unilever is now
more focused on the digital
marketing platform to connect
the people more because users
are more comfortable in online
shopping rather than doing the
market or offline shopping and
the most important point about
Unilever is that it directly
strikes on the rural market to
make them aware about the
products and services.
The Reckitt Benckiser is the
global organization and
operational in nearly 60
countries and sales in 200
countries. Reckitt Benckiser
focused on its core brands to
generate the better revenue and
the major production of
Reckitt Benckiser is with
India, Germany, Italy, China,
Thailand and USA. Now, the
company has opened a new
center for Scientific
Excellence in Hull, UK.
Promotion
Unilever is more focused on
the sponsorships and the
creative events (Nirschl and
Steinberg., 2018).
Reckitt Benckiser spends a lot
of money on advertisement
particularly in the rural areas.
People
Covers the people of all age
group form kid to old ones.
Reckitt Benckiser also target
all kinds of people but
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generally on the youth people.
Process
Having the manufacturing
industries all over the world
because it covers major and
famous brands.
Reckitt Benckiser is also
having manufacturing
industries across the world and
started a new center of
excellence in Hull, UK.
Physical Evidence
Attractive packaging and the
offers to attract the customers.
Attractive and unique packing
style to attract the customers
and especially to the young
people (Bhatt and Gupta.,
2018).
M3 Evaluation of different tactics applied by organization to demonstrates the business objective
For achieving the business objective successfully the various tactics that must be used by
an organization are : by establishing vision, missions & goals, measuring the progress regularly
of both management and of the organizational workforce, establishing long term strategy, getting
everyone on the board of discussion, putting simple strategic document for directing the
workforce towards the target objective & sticking to a result oriented management process. Thus,
tactics are the guidelines or roadmap to achieve the best use of available time & resource for
achieving the organizational goal effectively (Purvis., 2015).
P4. Evaluation of basic marketing plan of an organization (Covered in PPT)
CONCLUSION
The whole report conclude the different roles and responsibilities of the organizational
functions and how roles and responsibilities of the marketing function impacts on the
organization and comparison of 7P's of marketing mix according to the different consumer goods
company i.e., Unilever and the Reckitt Benckiser is described. At last, this file summarizes about
the evaluation of basic marketing planning of an organization according to their objectives,
monitoring, segmentation.
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