Topics for Semester Final Exam

1. Product Managers Jobs: Major Responsibilities Of Product Managers 2. The Marketing Plan: Contents of a marketing plan 3. Marketing mix 4. Relation between 4P & 4C 5. The Marketing Process 6. BCG(THE BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP) Models: Growth-Share Matrix 7. Analyzing the current business portfolio 8. Mission & Vision 9. Strategic Planning of marketing process

Q1.Product Managers Jobs: Major Responsibilities of Product Managers are:

Plans & develop marketing strategies:

1. Plans & develop promotional concept 2. Develop promotional materials 3. Communicate with different agencies 4. Allocate promotional materials 5. Answers different technical queries 6. Provides different strategic solution in market related problem 7. Analyzing & correlated expense versus sales 8. Prepared sales budget incentives scheme 9. Prepare product promotion budget 10. Organize seminar with sales department 11. Provide product training 12. Prepare report & memos 13. Visit doctors & markets 14. Any other duty as & when assign by the supervise

Q2.The Marketing Plan: Contents of a marketing plan

The Marketing Plan:

Each business, product or brand needs a detailed marketing plan. What does a marketing

plan look like? Our discussion focuses on product or brand plans that are a development of

the general planning process in Figure 3.1. A product or brand plan should contain the

following sections: executive summary, current marketing situation, threats and

opportunities, objectives and issues, marketing strategies, action programmes, budgets and

controls (see Table 3.1).

Q3. & Q4. Marketing mix, Relation between 4P & 4C

The set of tactical marketing tools-product, price, place, and promotion-that the firm

blends to produce the response it wants in the target market.

Product means the goods-and-services combination the company offers to the target market. Thus, a Ford Escape consists of nuts and bolts, spark plugs, pistons, headlights,

and thousands of other parts. Ford offers several Escape models and dozens of optional

features. The car comes fully serviced and with a comprehensive warranty that is as

much a part of the product as the tailpipe.

Price is the amount of money customers must pay to obtain the product. Ford calculates suggested retail prices that its dealers might charge for each Escape. But Ford dealers

rarely charge the full sticker price. Instead, they negotiate the price with each customer,

offering discounts, trade-in allowances, and credit terms. These actions adjust prices for

the current competitive and economic situations and bring them into line with the buyers perception of the cars value.

Place includes company activities that make the product available to target consumers.

Ford partners with a large body of independently owned dealerships that sell the

companys many different models. Ford selects its dealers carefully and strongly supports

them. The dealers keep an inventory of Ford automobiles, demonstrate them to potential

buyers, negotiate prices, close sales, and service the cars after the sale.

Promotion means activities that communicate the merits of the product and persuade

target customers to buy it. Ford spends more than $1.5 billion each year on U.S.

advertising to tell consumers about the company and its many products.13 Dealership

salespeople assist potential buyers and persuade them that Ford is the best car for them.

Ford and its dealers offer special promotionssales, cash rebates, and low financing rates-

as added purchase incentives.

Table: Relation between 4P & 4C

4Ps 4Cs

Product Customer solution (Customers need & want)

Price Customer cost

Place Convenience

Promotion Communication

Q5. The Marketing Process

The strategic plan defines the company's overall mission and objectives. Within each

business unit, marketing plays role in helping to accomplish the overall strategic objectives.

Marketing's role and activities in the organization are which summarizes the marketing

process and the forces influencing marketing strategy.

The marketing process of

1. Analyzing marketing opportunities;

2. Selecting target markets;

3. Developing the marketing mix; and

4. Managing the marketing effort.

Fig: Influences on marketing strategy

Target Consumers:

To succeed in today's competitive marketplace, companies must be customer

centered - winning customers from competitors by delivering greater value.

However, before it can satisfy consumers, a company must first understand their

needs and wants. So, sound marketing requires a careful analysis of consumers. An

understanding of buyer behaviour, guides this process. Companies know that they

cannot satisfy all consumers in a given market - at least, not all consumers in the

same way.

There are too many kinds of consumer with too many kinds of need, and some

companies are in a better position to serve certain segments of the market. As a

consequence, each company must divide the total market, choose the best segments

and design strategies for profitably serving chosen segments better than its

competitors do. This process involves five steps: demand measurement and

forecasting, market segmentation, market targeting, market positioning and

competitive positioning.

Demand Measurement and Forecasting:

Suppose a company is looking at possible markets for potential new product. First, the

company needs to estimate the current and future size of the market and its segments. To

estimate current market size, the company would identify all competing products, estimate

the current sales of these products, and determine whether the market is large enough to

support another product profitably.

Equally important is future market growth. Companies want to enter markets that show

strong growth prospects. Growth potential may depend on the growth rate of certain age,

income and nationality groups that use the product. Growth may also relate to larger

developments in the environment, such as economic conditions, the crime rate and lifestyle

changes. For example, the future markets for quality children's toys and clothing relate to

current birth rates, trends in consumer affluence and projected family lifestyles.

Forecasting the effect of these environmental forces is difficult, but it is necessary in order

to make decisions about the market. The company's marketing information specialists will

probably use complex techniques to measure and forecast demand.

Market segmentation:

Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs, characteristics or

behaviour, which might require separate products or marketing mixes, is market

segmentation.Market targeting:

The process of evaluating each market, segment's attractiveness and selecting one or more

segments to enter.

Market positioning:

Arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive and desirable place relative to

competing products in the minds of target consumers. Formulating competitive positioning

for a product and a detailed marketing mix.

Q6. BCG (THE BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP) Models: Growth-Share Matrix

Definition of Growth-Share Matrix:

A portfolio-planning method that evaluates a company's strategic business units (SBUs) in

terms of their market growth rate and relative market share. SBUs & are classified as

stars, cash cotes, question marks or dogs.

1. Stars:

Stars are high-growth, high-share businesses or products. They often need heavy

investment to finance their rapid growth. Eventually their growth will slow down, and they

will turn into cash cows.

2. Cash cows:

Cash cows are low-growth, high-share businesses or products. These established and

successful SBUs need less investment to hold their market share. Thus they produce cash

that the company uses to pay its bills and to support other SBUs that need investment.

3. Question marks:

Question marks are low-share business unit in high growth markets. They require cash to

hold their share, let alone increase it. Management has to think hard about question marks

- which ones they should built into stars and which ones they should phase out.

4. Dogs.

Dogs are low-growth, low-share businesses and products. They may generate enough cash

to maintain themselves, but do not promise to be large sources of cash.

Q7. Analyzing the current business portfolio

Portfolio analysis helps managers evaluate the businesses making up the company. The

company will want to put strong resources into its more profitable businesses and phase

down or drop its weaker ones. Recently, Sweden's Volvo has started disposing of its non-

core businesses to strengthen its portfolio. It plans to sell its interests in consumer products

(holdings in BCP), Pharmaceuticals (28 per cent of Pharmacia), stock brokering, property

and investment. The tighter portfolio will allow Volvo to concentrate on revitalizing its

passenger car, truck and bus operations.

Management's first step is to identity the key businesses making up the company. These are

strategic business units. A strategic business unit (SBC) is a unit of the company that has a

separate mission and objectives, and which can be planned independently from other

company businesses. An SBU can be a company division, a product line within a division,

or sometimes a single product or brand.

The next step in business portfolio analysis calls for management to assess the

attractiveness of its various SBUs and decide how much support each deserves. In some

companies, this occurs informally. Management looks at the company's collection of

businesses or products and uses judgment to decide how much each SBU should contribute

and receive. Other companies use formal portfolio-planning methods.

The purpose of strategic planning is to find ways in which the company can best use its

strengths to take advantage of attractive opportunities in the environment. So most

standard portfolio-analysis methods evaluate SBUs on two important dimensions: the

attractiveness of the SBU's market or industry; and the strength of the SBU's position in

that market or industry. The best-known portfolio-planning methods are from the Boston

Consulting Group, a leading management consulting firm, and by General Electric and

Shell.

Q8. Mission & Vision

The Mission

A mission states the purpose of a company. Firms often start with a clear mission held

within the mind of their founder. Then, over time, the mission fades as the company

acquires new products and markets. A mission may be clear, but forgotten by some

managers. An extreme ease of this was the Anglican Church Commissioners, who thought

they had the 'Midas touch' when they started speculating on the international property

market. They found out that markets go down as well as up and lost a third of the Church's

ancient wealth in the process. Other problems can occur when the mission may remain

clear, but no longer fits the environment. The Levi preview shows that company struggling

with this problem.

When an organization is drifting, the management must renew its search for purpose. It

must ask: What business are we in? What do consumers value? What are we in business

for? What sort of business are we? What makes us special? These simple-sounding

questions are among the most difficult that the company will ever have to answer.

Successful companies continuously raise these questions and answer them. Asking such

basic questions is a sign of strength, not uncertainty.

Many organizations develop formal mission statements that answer these questions. A

mission statement is a statement of the organization's purpose - what it wants to

accomplish in the larger environment, A clear mission statement acts as an 'invisible hand'

that guides people in the organization, so that they can work independently and yet

collectively towards overall organizational goals. Traditionally, companies have defined

their business in product terms ('we manufacture furniture'), or in technological terms ('we

are a chemical-processing firm'). But mission statements should be market-oriented.

Definition of Mission statement:

A mission statement is a statement of the organization's purpose - what it wants to

accomplish in the larger environment, A clear mission statement acts as an 'invisible hand'

that guides people in the organization, so that they can work independently and yet

collectively towards overall organizational goals.

WHAT BUSINESS ARE WE IN? WHO ARE OUR CUSTOMERS? WHAT ARE WE IN BUSINESS FOR? WHAT SORT OF BUSINESS ARE WE?

A mission should be:

Realistic Specific Raised Motivating

Visions:

Visions guide the best missions. A vision is a contagious dream, a widely communicated

statement or slogan that captures the needs of the time. Sony's president, Akio Morita,

wanted everyone to have access to 'personal portable sound', and his company created the

Walkman. Richard Branson thought 'flying should be fun', so he founded Virgin Airlines.

Thomas Monaghan wanted to deliver hot pizza to any home within 30 minutes and he

created Domino's Pizza. The company's mission statement should provide a vision and

direction for the company for the next 1020 years. They do not change every few years in

response to each new turn in the environment.

Still, a company must redefine its mission if that mission has lost credibility or no longer

defines an optimal course for the company." Marketing Highlight 3.1 describes how recent

events have caused Eastman Kodak to think carefully about its mission. The hostile

environment in the early 1990s caused Siemens, the German electronics giant, to review its

strategy. Its seven core statements (Figure 3.2) provided strong communications and drove

its strategy, structure and style of management.

Q9. Strategic Planning of marketing process

The strategic plan involves adapting the firm to take advantage of opportunities in its

constantly changing environment. It is the process of developing and maintaining a

strategic fit between the organization's goals and capabilities and its changing marketing

opportunities.

It relies on:

Developing a clean company mission Supporting objectives A sound business portfolio Coordinated functional strategies

Steps in Strategic planning:

Defining the company mission

Setting company objective & Goals

Designing the business portfolio