Key Roles and Responsibilities of the Marketing Function

The fundamental function of an organization is marketing, which studies the relationship of the organization with the environment, whether if they are clients or the competitors (Armstrong, Adam, Denize and Kotler, 2014). Regards of any specific sector of activity organizations, currently are competing in the global as well as uncertain environment in which is imperative in conducting market research to commercialize their goods and also survive in the market.
Parcelforce Worldwide belongs to the Royal Mail Group that has been major provider of the express parcel deliveries. The company remains to be offering various services such as a guaranteed delivery on numerous times or maybe days. The business utilizes a network of international partners to lengthen its reach beyond UK.

P1:  Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.

Define marketing: Marketing has been referred as the management method which is accountable for identifying, anticipating along with satisfying the client requirement profitability (Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). Marketing could be utilized to ascertain the product in addition to services that can be of interest to the client and strategy to utilize in the sales, business development and communications.

Importance of marketing for Parcelforce Worldwide organization

Marketing is important for this organization for a number of ways.

Consumer needs: marketing encompasses not only determines on the consumer need, but it helps in creating of the needs of the consumer. It begins on understanding on the potential consumer.

Finding the shortest path to consumer and the brand:  The organization has demonstrated continuous involvement on the marketing through social media marketing, and they have achieved this by participating with timely campaigns which are aimed at their audiences (Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015).

Marketing function: This is the art that supports a business to identify and source likely successful products for the market place in which they function and then promote them by differentiating them from this kind of equivalent products.

Key marketing functions

The key marketing functions which Parcelforce Worldwide organization has utilized are pricing, distribution and the market analysis.

Pricing

Pricing has played an important role when it comes to determining on the success as well as profitability of the organization (Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). The organization has been the major deliver of the postal parcels worldwide therefore, they are providing low-cost suppliers hence they have set low prices and they have remained profitable. They have differentiated on their services from the other competitors such as improving quality of service by majoring on time-critical products.  

The Importance of Marketing for Parcelforce Worldwide Organization

Distribution

Distribution strategy which has been utilized by this company has determined how the customers have obtained on the products (Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). The organization is supplying to a large group of individuals, in one day they deliver 210000 parcels therefore to be more cost effective to deal with the customers they use the local distributors in various regions. The organization marketing consumer products distribute them through various outlets.

Market segmentation 
when it comes to market they operate in; business to business where transportation of  parcels and supplies from one organization to another, business to consumer market is where the parcels go from the businesses to homes. The next is the consumer to consumer market in which the parcels are going from one home address to another.

P2: Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational context.

Importance of marketing

The major roles of marketing in this organization are as follows;

Development of the marketing strategies: it helps in the development and planning of the strategies for the business organization (Sheth and Sisodia, 2015). The leaders need to recognize the needs and requirements of target consumers (Groucutt and Hopkins, 2015). Another importance of marketing is that of monitoring of the marketing condition: Marketing has an important role in identification of the new advancements particularly in the marketing environment (McDonald and Wilson, 2016). These new development provides a constructive response to the progression of product and services.

Structure and operation of organization

In the organization there is a finance department which connects to the marketing department of the organization (McDonald and Wilson, 2016). The functional aspect of marketing could not function without appropriate communication along with sorting with the financial team in the company. Furthermore, the marketing department requires accurate description from the production department in relation to the services and the products of the organization to manage to offer marketing plan (McDonald and Wilson, 2016). Another department in the organization is the HR that gives economic aid from the finance department, logistics from the distribution network. In the HR department they have got intended the HR policies with the marketing department to boost on the sales.

Structure and operation of the marketing department

In the marketing department the marketing services involves the economic resources for implementation, planning, study and evaluation of the marketing strategies as well as planning among the business organization (McDonald and Wilson, 2016). In the marketing department there are sales team whose major work is to market the services provided by the organization. Additionally, there are sales managers whose duty is to provide tactics and plan for their sales team as well as the networks for the distribution.

Key Marketing Functions

Overview of the marketing process

Overview of the marketing process of the organization is as follows.

Inter relation of marketing unit with other functional unit of the organisation

Marketing department is interrelated to the other department in the sense that they work together for example; the marketing department requires accurate information from the department of production in relation to the products and services to be able to provide a marketing plan (McDonald and Wilson, 2016).

Additionally, it requires the HR for the purpose of the economic help from the finance department as well as the logistics from the distribution network.

P3: Compare the ways in which two organizations Parcelforce Worldwide

Business objectives and its importance for the ParcelforceWorldwide

The business objective of this organization is to provide a range of service which include a guaranteed delivery on various times or days (McDonald and Wilson, 2016). To achieve this they have made changes on their business through improvement of the quality of service through focus on time critical products (Wilson, Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler, 2016). This is important to them since it would reduce on the number of the parcels which are handled but increase on the value of each delivery.

Define and explain marketing Mix (7P’s)

It is the tool that helps the marketers to recognize the services and products. The marketing mix is utilized in the marketing planning techniques to achieve the goals of organizations and objectives (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013). ParcelforceWorldwide employs the extended marketing mix to attain their goals and objectives given below;
Product: The service must be appropriate to be able to satisfy on the requirements and demands. The primary objective of their services is effectiveness to meet the clients.
Place: The convenience to both the product and services of the business should be simpler to the client. The store is situated near approachable locations to target the customer and their deliver is prompt.
Price: The price of services provided need to offer value to the money experience to the client. This continues to be crucial strategy when representing the value customer.

Promotion: The promotion process of the organization involves advertising, social media, and the sales promotion. The organization is B2C, B2B, C2C services; hence they are focused to personal selling (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013).

Process: The process entails the services of the organization such as ParcelforceWorldwide delivers parcels to the customers with a smile to be able to produce a greater buying experience to them.

How Roles and Responsibilities of Marketing Relate to the Wider Organizational Context

People:  Individuals’ entails organizational culture management, workers as well as the customer services of ParcelforceWorldwide which are important to them (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013).

Physical evidence: This entails the facilities of the organization. The organization utilizes network of clients who are international to extend its reach beyond the UK to more individuals globally.

Application of marketing mix to marketing planning process to achieve business objectives

Parcelforce Worldwide is a large organization for delivery of the parcels. The client dedicated initiatives helped the enterprise to grow and make an effect in the national market as it was beginning. It was as a result of the use of extended marketing mix by the organization and genuine passion on the client centric approach (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013). The sole success of ParcelforceWorldwide organization is the understanding of the client as well as market via the marketing essential tools as well as building the goals of the organization and techniques with the satisfaction approach (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013). The use of marketing combine marketing planning method is focused over product dimensions, place of offering the product, pricing structure in addition to promotional activities.

Application of marketing mix to marketing planning for another organization

The other organization is Marshfield Iice creams of UK that uses a marketing segmentation process in order to attain the goals of the organization. The marketing segmentation of this organization entails the following process (Brassington and pettitt, 2012).

• The organization defined the market for the organization such as target market.
• The creation of the market segments which takes place.
• Evaluations of various segments which are done for various criteria
• Creation of the segments process
• Attractiveness of the segments which are evaluated
• The target market are then selected
• Development and the implementation of the positional strategy
• Evaluation as well as feedback process for the segmentation

Similarities and dissimilarities of both

Similarities

• Both of the organizations are found in the UK.

Dissimilarities

• ParcelforceWorldwide utilizes the marketing mix strategy while Marshfield uses the market segmentation strategy.
• They are in different products sectors

P4: Produce and evaluate marketing plan for ParcelforceWorldwide

Marketing plan

Marketing plan is an extensive document which shows the business advertising in addition to marketing efforts for the coming years (Brassington and pettitt, 2012). It usually highlights on the business activities which are involved in accomplishment of various marketing objectives within a given period.

Importance of marketing plan for the organization

The marketing plan will help the organization to develop on the products as well as the services in the business which meets the requirement of the target market (Jobber and Chadwick, 2012). Furthermore, the marketing plan would certainly help attain on the target audience, boost on the customer base and boost on the bottom line.

Key terms

The key terms are setting goals and objectives, marketing strategies, and objectives.

Marketing objectives: Entails what the organizations aims at achieving within a given period.

Marketing strategies: This entails the strategy the organization would employ in order to achieve the set objectives.

Setting goals and objectives: This entails the planning process whereby the organization set objectives which are translated into actionable goals.

Marketing plan for ParcelforceWorldwide

Marketing objectives 

• Developing awareness of the brand through steady increase of new customers
• Developing an increase in the sales whilst attaining a state or even decrease in the marketing expenses(Mishra, 2016).

Marketing strategies

This is the strategy which is utilized by the organization to market on their services and product. In the case of Parcelforce worldwide utilized expanded distribution to increase on their growth rate and revenue (Jobber and Chadwick, 2012). Parcelforce worldwide organization has various partners who help them market their product international to other market beyond UK.

Setting goals and objectives:  the main goal of the organization has been to improve on the business especially on the delivery of the parcel. To achieve this there is need to improve on the service by targeting on-time critical products. This helps in reduction of parcels which are handled and increase in the value of delivery.

Evaluation of marketing plan

There are various tools for evaluating the marketing plan this is through; sales analysis and cost-profitability analysis.

Sales analysis

When the organization improves on the services for the critical products, it will improve the overall sales by 10%. This is based on the improvement of the value of delivery which will make the customers utilize more of the service.

Cost-profitability analysis

The organization utilizes cost allocation in order to analyze the performance- this is through cost, income and profit across the various attribute of the business (Brassington and pettitt, 2012). The organization could utilize this to analyze their cost from the income they have from the sales and know the amount of profit they have made.

References

Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.

Brassington, F. and pettitt, S., 2012. Essentials of Marketing. 3rd Ed. Harlow: Pearson.

Groucutt, J. and Hopkins, C., 2015. Marketing (Business Briefings). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jobber, D. and Chadwick, F., 2012. Principles and Practice of Marketing. 7th Ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill.

Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. 2013. Principles of Marketing. London: Prentice Hall.

McDonald, M. and Wilson, H., 2016. Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to profit from them. John Wiley & Sons.

Mishra, A. (2016). Product mix and product line.

Sheth, J.N. and Sisodia, R.S., 2015. Does marketing need reform?: Fresh perspectives on the future. Routledge.

Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V., Bitner, M.J. and Gremler, D., 2016. Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm. McGraw Hill.