Marketing Management
Introduction
Marketing management relates to a company’s art of targeting and retaining customers, promotion and advertisement as well as developing superior customer value. The marketing department of a company is responsible for all these functions. The marketing department of a company is also responsible for conducting marketing research and informing all the other departments of a company about the changes taking place in the market (Godwin, 2019). In this report, the role of marketing management in an organisation will be discussed. It will also discuss what it means to be market-oriented and how does it affect the strategy formulation of a company. This report will be discussed in the context of the case study. The case study is based on the dynamic Italian mobile network and telecommunication industry.
Main Body
Discuss the role of marketing in achieving organisational goals including delivering perceived value to customers.
The marketing department is one of an integral part of the company. Every company has a marketing department they compete against each other for the same market share. The marketing department that constantly updates the company’s marketing strategy can maintain their place in the market. The small and large companies are always competing and the marketing team that constantly innovates and remains active can help the company to achieve victory. Some of the important roles of marketing in mobile networking are discussed below:
Meet consumer needs and wants
The marketing department of a mobile networking company has to meet the needs of their customers. A company's ability is to retain its customers only if they provide them with what the want. Usually, the main aspect that focuses on while choosing a mobile network carrier is the features, benefits and prices offered by the company. The marketing team of a company should interact with their customer through customer touch points. This will give the company to know what customer feel about their services (Sajid, 2016). Taking reviews and suggestions from the customers will help the marketing team to get more customer insights. Some of how the marketing team can interact with their customers are through social media, customer care service and websites. Customer touch points are how a company can communicate with their customers.
Strategy making
As per the case study, technology has been incorporated in strategy making for a company since the 1980s. Strategy formulation is also a part of the marketing department and it can take help of the research and development team for using effective technological tools. There are many businesses in the telecommunication sector, which is why a mobile network company must plan a strategy. The main role of the marketing team is to generate leads and the company can make use of social media as well as websites to attract more and more customers. The marketing strategy also includes researching about the market with the help of various approaches such as 4 & 7P marketing mix, STP, Porter’s five and so on.
Widening the market
In order to increase the sales and awareness of the company, the marketing team has to promote and advertise the services of the company. Usually, the marketing team uses advertisement on various platforms such as newspaper, television, magazines, social media, sponsoring, and so on. Following these strategies will help a telecommunication organisation to increase its brand awareness (da Costa et al., 2018). The marketing team will be able to attract more customers if they make the advertisement humorous. This increases the visibility of a company and people start wondering about what benefits this company provides. The company can also send their customers directly to their websites with the help of backlinks. A telecommunication company can increase its market share by following a competitive pricing strategy. In a competitive pricing strategy, a company uses the price of another company as a benchmark and uses it to set the prices of their own.
Competition
The Italian mobile network industry has many companies and to succeed in the telecommunication industry, a company will have to compete against its competitors in every aspect. Some of the important factors are that the marketing team has to focus on while advertising is the use of price and quality of a product.
Growth of a company
A company can grow only when it can increase its sale. If the sales of a company increase, they will be able to reinvest in the company and expand their operations. The marketing team will be able to increase sales by creating demand for the company (Cortez and Johnston, 2019). If the company can meet the demand rate the company will be able to increase its sales and therefore expand the company.
Illustrate what it means to be 'market-orientated'.
Market orientation refers to creating products and services based on the needs and desires of customers. Customers are satisfied when they receive a product or service that they desire. A company can become successful by being market-oriented. Market-oriented companies usually determine the needs and desires of their customers by taking opinion from their target market. It is the job of the marketing team to conduct market research and collect opinion from their customers (Kohli, 2017). The new marketing managers argue that the conventional way of developing and innovative products is the opposite of the market orientation strategy. In the conventional method of marketing, the team used to focus on unique selling points. The unique selling point strategy focuses on defining the main features of the service or the product. However, the market orientation strategy focuses on developing and innovative products as per the desires of customers.
Market orientation is an approach that mobile network companies can use to develop and modify their services. It is the job of the marketing team to determine the needs and wants of customers. Doing so will help the marketing team to determine the primary concerns, personal preferences and needs of customers. Different customers have different views and by quantifying the views of the customers, the marketing team can come up with a strategy that the majority of customers would prefer (Iyer et al., 2019). The mobile networking companies can gather customer data in many ways. One of how the mobile networking company can gather customer data is through surveys.
Networking companies can take a survey of their current customers by simply sending them a message, ask them to rate, and give revise on their experience of the service. Since a company must retain their existing customers; mobile networking should first focus on it. A company will be able to become more successful if they make changes in their services that the customers would not even think. However, competitors can also adopt these new changes, which is why the marketing team must be able to generate as many leads as possible in the least amount of time. Doing so will ensure that the company can also retain the maximum number of customers in the market.
Telecommunication and mobile networking companies provide communication and internet services to their customers. A company should first focus on the service that customers use the most (Kiessling et al., 2016). If the number of customers using the internet service is greater than the ones using communication service, the company must focus on innovating internet services first. This means that the company is focusing on the market orientation strategy for the most in-demand services. With a rising global economy and the abundance of customer options, businesses adjusting to market orientation will profit from a strategic edge over other businesses.
The market orientation strategy can help a telecommunication or mobile network company to improve its sales by improving their services. The company does this by solving the concerns raised by customers. Doing so will help the company to satisfy its customers and promote brand loyalty. Customers tend to continue using the mobile service of a company that aids their concerns. The company will also be able to profit by the word of mouth publicity since happy customers tend to speak about their experience to their family members, colleges and friends (Mahmoud et al., 2016).
In order to be profitable, networking companies have to make sure that every company department embraces market orientation strategy so that it becomes an intrinsic part of the company culture. Market orientation will help a business improve consumer satisfaction and drive expansion into new demographics when successful.
Discuss how being market-oriented affects strategy formulation, implementation, and planning.
A telecommunication company can incorporate market orientation strategy in its operations. In order to be successful, the company must define a plan that will help them to incorporate the strategy. According to Ghezzi et al (2014), the company can make changes in their external innovation techniques, regulations, and customer change and competitor strategy.
Innovation: Innovation is one of the most important aspects of a business. As market-oriented, helps telecommunication companies for innovating their services and operations. Innovation refers to making changes in the services of a company so that it fulfils the needs and demands of the customers. Telecommunication companies must always innovate their services so that people do not leave them and opt for a different carrier. Since it is a technical field there is a lot of room for innovation (Amin et al., 2016). The company must take reviews from their customers and determine what changes must be made and the level of it. Many companies are competing in the Italian telecommunication industry. In order to survive in the industry, innovation is necessary.
Mobile network companies also provide internet services to their customers. However, the speed of the internet varies from company to company. However, customers are a demanding bunch and would prefer the services of a company whose inter speed is faster than the others that are present in the market. Doing so will help the company to fulfil the needs and demands of its customers as well as increase its profitability. The company must also focus on innovating their communication services so that people can transfer information with a very crisp and clear sound.
Regulations: The government is always making new rules and regulations to protect people from various fraudulent activities that happen through mobile communication. The company should therefore provide safety guidelines to its customers to protect them from such activities. Many people lose money by listening to fake calls that ask them to provide their bank details to transfer a winning prize amount to their bank accounts, as they were selected in the company lucky draw (Montiel-Campos, 2018). This can therefore damage the reputation of the company as well if the company did not provide any safety guidelines to its customers.
It is also important that companies follow the rules and regulations of the government. Customers prefer buying services of a company that follows the rules and regulations provided by the government. This increases the level of faith for the company in the customer's minds.
Customer change: The Company can also become market-oriented by providing services to new customers emerging in the market. Previously the telecommunication services were only used by working professionals. However, nowadays the need for communication has increases and even students should have a telecommunication facility. There are many reasons why children should also have the benefits of telecommunication service. If any child is in danger, they will be able to convey a message to their relatives, parents or neighbours (Crick, 2019). Therefore, a telecommunication company must also provide services to new customers emerging in the market. It is the job of the marketing team to make people aware that such services are provided to the new customers in the market.
Competitor strategy: A telecommunication company can also develop new strategies by focusing on the changes made by its competitors in the industry. The company can incorporate these changes while being market-oriented. This will also increase the chances of company to services to more and more customers.
Conclusion
It can be inferred from the study that the marketing team plays a vital role in making a business market-oriented. The marketing team conducts research and surveys for market-oriented firms, helping them to consider consumer tastes. A market-oriented business can produce goods and services that satisfy its demands and requirements by understanding consumer desires.
Reference list
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