Marketing Essentials: Tesco's Marketing Strategy, Mix, and Planning

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of marketing essentials, focusing on Tesco as a case study. It explains the role of marketing and its interrelation with other functional units within an organization, detailing the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function and its connection to the broader organizational context. The report compares how Tesco and Sainsbury utilize the elements of the marketing mix (7Ps) to achieve their respective business objectives, highlighting differences in product offerings, pricing strategies, and distribution methods. Furthermore, it develops and evaluates a basic marketing plan for Tesco, incorporating all elements of the 7Ps marketing mix, an action plan, and measures for evaluating progress toward meeting the organization's goals and objectives. The analysis covers strategic marketing, marketing management, and the interplay between marketing and other departments such as finance, HR, and R&D, providing valuable insights into Tesco's marketing approach.

Marketing Essentials
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO 1: Explain the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other functional unit of an
organisation:....................................................................................................................................4
Using examples from your chosen organisation, explain the key roles and responsibility of the
marketing function how roles and responsibilities of marketing relates to the wider
organisational context..................................................................................................................4
LO 2: Compare ways in which the organisation use elements of marketing mix (7P’s) to achieve
overall business objectives..............................................................................................................9
Using your chosen organisation and another organisation, compare how organisation use the
various elements of 7P’s marketing mix in the marketing planning process to achieve business
objective.......................................................................................................................................9
LO 3: Develop and evaluate a basic marketing plan.....................................................................15
Using your chosen organisation, produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan to meet
marketing goals and objective. The marketing plan should include all elements of the 7Ps
marketing mix, with an action plan and measures for marketing and evaluating the progress
and meeting of your chosen organisation’s goals and objectives..............................................15
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................22
Reference.......................................................................................................................................23

Introduction
The report speaks about the important terms of the marketing such as marketing mix and
marketing plan. Along with this, the report also explains the roles and responsibilities of the
marketing functions and also how the marketing relates with the other functional units of an
organisation. Marketing is a term which is used by all the organisations as this ensures the
success for the company. It identifies the customers and their taste and preferences into the
market so that the organisation could get the idea about what to produce. For the deeper
understanding of the marketing and its terms, the company Tesco is taken as an example where
the marketing mix would be explained and a marketing plan of Tesco would be created. Tesco is
a grocery supermarket in UK and it comes under the top five supermarket chain of UK.

LO 1: Explain the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other
functional unit of an organisation:
Using examples from your chosen organisation, explain the key roles and responsibility of
the marketing function how roles and responsibilities of marketing relates to the wider
organisational context
Marketing is a very important process of an organisation. This could be explained as the study
and the management of maintaining the relationship with the customers by delivering the
products and the services as per their needs (Goi, 2013). The marketing plays a very important
role into the organisation and helps in achieving the overall organisational goals.
Figure 1: Role of marketing in Tesco (Stone and Jacobs, 2010)
As shown in the diagram given above, the roles and responsibilities of the marketing could be
divided into two parts. These are:

1. Strategic marketing and
2. Marketing management
Earlier, only the marketing is used in the management context by the company Tesco but since
the competition in the industry increased from the side of Sainsbury and other supermarket
chains, the company started to follow the marketing in strategic context. The main roles of these
two are explained below:
Strategic marketing: The main roles of the marketing in the strategic context are:
 Analysing and information: As the competition into the market is increased then it is
very important for the organisation to gather the information about the customers,
competitors and the environment of the company so that this could be used in formulating
the strategies (Grönroos, 2015). The concept of marketing plays a very important role
here as the company suggest the various strategies and policies to Tesco that helps the
company in gathering the information from the market.
For example: the concept market research is a part of the marketing that helps the
company in gathering, formatting and analysing the information in a form that could be
used by Tesco for the future use.
 Formulation of corporate business and marketing strategic decisions: As described
in the above section that the information is gathered by the organisation to formulate the
strategies (Hoffman and Bateson, 2011). With the help of this information, the company
Tesco also can formulate the high level strategies that could help the company in
investing in new areas etc. Thus, it could be said that the marketing plays a role here

where it informs the company Tesco about the decisions that it could take in the
corporate world to enhance the business.
 Execution of marketing philosophy: There are the various philosophies are explained
by the scholars in the marketing that shows the path to the organisation about how the
success should be gained into the market. It is the responsibilities of the marketing
concept to conform the organisation Tesco towards these philosophies so that the
company could offer the better services to the customers and also gain the profit into the
market.
Marketing management: The main roles of the marketing in the context of managing the
functions of the organisation are explained below:
 Role of marketing in developing the product marketing plan: Marketing also helps in
developing the marketing plan for the products and services offered by the company. In
Tesco, the marketing managers of the company use the various concepts and the
strategies explained in marketing in setting the objectives for the company so that the
organisational goals of the company could be achieved (Hulbert and Toy, 2012). In the
developing the marketing plan, the marketing plays the important role in setting the
objectives, formulating the strategies, gathering the information etc.
 Role of marketing in execution of product marketing plan: The term marketing also
play a very important role in executing the marketing plan in the real market. The studies
show that a plan could not be developed perfect. The company has to make the changes
in the plan when it applies on the real market (due to highly volatile market or high
competition). In this way, the terms explained in the marketing help the managers of the

company in changing the decisions at the real place without losing the end result of the
plan.
How marketing interrelates with other functional unit of Tesco: the term marketing is not
related to the marketing department of Tesco only even it affects the other department of the
company too. In the other words, it could be said that this helps the other department in
continuing their functions too (Kumar, Aaker and Day, 2014). Here, the explanation of the how
the marketing relates with the other functional unit of Tesco is given:
Finance department: the marketing helps the finance department in the following ways:
 Arranging the budgets
 Saving the revenue or remove the wastage of money through explaining the strategies
that ensures the profit
 Preparing budgets for the company.
Human resource department: the marketing helps the HR department in the following ways:
 Explains the required skills
 Explains the competencies that must be in employees so that the competition in the
market could be reduced.
 Also explains the ways of recruiting etc.
Research and development department: The marketing helps the R&D department in the
following ways:
 Provides the information about the market, customers and competitors
 Helps in identifying the trends and techniques (McDaniel, Lamb and Hair, 2012).

Production department: the marketing helps the production department in the following ways:
 Anticipate the demand of the product and services
 Estimates the supply of the products and services into the market.

LO 2: Compare ways in which the organisation use elements of marketing
mix (7P’s) to achieve overall business objectives.
Using your chosen organisation and another organisation, compare how organisation use
the various elements of 7P’s marketing mix in the marketing planning process to achieve
business objective
The concept of marketing mix is very important for the organisation as this helps the company in
taking the various types of the decisions. Basically, marketing mix acts as a tool in the
organisations that explains the organisation about:
 What to produce (characteristics of products, benefits to the customers, packaging, shape
and design etc)
 At what price the products would be offered to the customers (Farese, Kimbrell and
Woloszyk, 2011)
 At which place the products would be available and
 What techniques would be used by the company to create the awareness of the product it
is offering to the customers?
The marketing mix is also known as 4P’s and product marketing mix. Rather than offering a
product, if a company offers the services to the customers then these four elements of the
marketing mix extended to 7 which is also known as 7P’s or service marketing mix. The
extended elements of marketing mix are: process, people and physical evidence.

Figure 2: Service marketing mix (Hopkins, 2012)
As Tesco offers the products and services to the customers in this way, the company uses the
7P’s instead of 4P’s. Here, the comparison of the 7P’s of Tesco would be done with Sainsbury
which belongs to same industry of UK. Sainsbury is second largest supermarket chain of UK.
These two companies offer the best products and services to the company. The comparison in the
service marketing mix of Tesco and Sainsbury is explained below:
1. Product:
The product element of the marketing mix refers the services and goods that the company offers
to the customers so that their needs could be fulfilled. Tesco offers the different ranges of the
products and services to the customers to satisfy their needs such as foods, clothing, financial
services etc (Dibb and Simkin, 2013). The products of Tesco are well designed and well
arranged in the supermarket and the customers of the company do not feel any type of
inconvenience in finding the products in the super market. The services offered by the company
are also well arranged. The different types of the product lines are offered by Tesco to the

customers that focus on their every possible need. The services like free download of music,
grocery delivery etc is also offered by Tesco to the customers.
The products and services that Sainsbury offers to the company are also good but the products
and services of the supermarket are not well arranged. Besides this, the company does not offer
the services like music downloads and financial services etc. Hence, it could be said that in the
product element Tesco dominates Sainsbury.
2. Price:
The price element of the marketing mix explains the amount that the customers pay to the
company to get the product or services (Cravens and Piercy, 2016). Tesco uses the penetration
pricing strategy where it keeps the price of the product low without compromising the quality of
the product and services. The pricing strategy of Tesco is the reason of why the company is
leading the markets of UK.
On the other hand, Sainsbury uses the price skimming strategy where the price of the product are
low at initial stages and when the customers base of the company is increased then the prices are
set high. In the today’s world, this pricing strategy does not seem good especially for the
supermarket chains when the competition is high. The customers are being smarter and they also
have the information about the substitute products and services. Hence, here too, it could be said
that the Tesco dominates Sainsbury.
3. Place:
The place element explains the efforts and the strategies that the company is using to make the
products available into the market. Tesco is headquartered in Chestnut, England and for the

purpose of delivering the services and products; the company has opened the stores at the various
locations of UK (Cohen, 2015). The two channels use by the company to make the product
available into the markets are online and offline. Under the offline, the company offers the
products through Tesco superstore, Tesco express, Tesco extra and Tesco compact. Under the
online strategy, the company has made a web portal where the customers could get a direct
contact to the company.
Sainsbury also offers the products and services to the customers through online and offline
channels. However, the online channel of Sainsbury is not as effective as Tesco. Through the
offline channel, Sainsbury only offers the products and services through its supermarket.
4. Promotion:
Promotion refers the strategies of the company that it uses to communicate a message of the
organisation to the customers about the offering of the organisation. Tesco works on the low
price and great quality model. Tesco also keeps it promise to the customers. The main strategies
that Tesco uses for the promotion are the advertising, sales promotion, online marketing and
public relations. Tesco also sponsors the charity events (Borden, 2014).
Sainsbury uses the advertising only in newspaper, sales promotion and direct marketing. The
promotional strategies of Sainsbury do not seem as effective as Tesco because the company does
not use online marketing in the age of technology. The online marketing helps the company in
reaching to the large volume of the customers than any other promotional strategy.
5. People: