Question: The modern day marketing can be summarized by the above diagram.

How relevant is each of the sub-concepts labeled 1-5 to the modern day marketing management Marketing concept In the 1950s the marketing concept emerged. As a business philosophy, the marketing concept is aimed at orienting a firm completely toward its customers. As such, a customer focus should permeate every department from production to finance to human resources. All major decisions should be based on relevant market considerations. This does not of course mean that other activities in the organization must be completely subordinate to marketing. What it does mean is that, managers should make important decisions in any area without taking marketing implications into account.

Marketing is "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. For business to consumer marketing it is "the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships, in order to capture value from customers in return". For business to business marketing it is creating value, solutions, and relationships either short term or long term with a company or brand. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities,marketing management is one of the major components of business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of

marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors. The term developed from an original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering marketing is "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches."

1. Customer Orientation The heart of a market orientation is its customer focus. To create superior value for buyers continuously requires that a seller understand a buyer's entire value chain, not only as it is today but also as it evolves over time. Buyer value can be created at any point in the chain by making the buyer either more effective in its markets or more efficient in its operations. Managers must shift their focus from an internal company perspective to the customers viewpoint . Succesful customers requires a complete understanding of buyers and their needs. .

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him well .

In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no reason to spend R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs. A formal approach to this customer-focused marketing is known as SIVA (Solution, Information, Value, Access). This system is basically the four Ps renamed and reworded to provide a customer focus. The SIVA Model provides a demand/customer-centric alternative to the wellknown 4Ps supply side model (product, price, placement, promotion) of marketing management. Product Solution

Promotion Information

Price

Value

Place

Access

If any of the 4Ps were problematic or were not in the marketing factor of the business, the business could be in trouble and so other companies may appear in the surroundings of the company, so the consumer demand on its products will decrease. However, in recent years service marketing has widened the domains to be considered, contributing to the7P's of marketing in total. The other 3P's of service marketing are: process, physical environment and people.

2. Organization Performance Objectives In this sense, a firm's marketing department is often seen as of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from an organization's marketing department would be used to guide the actions of other departments within the firm. As an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product, or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires. The production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production and promotion of the product. Inter-departmental conflicts may occur, should a firm adhere to the marketing orientation. Production may oppose the installation, support and servicing of new capital stock, which may be needed to manufacture a new product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure, since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.

3. Coordinated marketing activities All elements of marketing programme (marketing mix) constitute an interrelated system and therefore the program must be viewed and planned as a whole. Also marketing must be closely interrelated with other business activities When all the companys departments work together to serve the customers interests, the result is integrated marketing. Unfortunately, not all employees are trained and motivated to work for the customer. Integrated marketing takes place on two levels. First, the various marketing functions-sales force, advertising, customer service, product management, marketing researchmust work together. Second, the other departments must embrace marketing; they must also think customer. Marketing is not a department so much as a company wide orientation. To foster teamwork among all departments, a company should carry out internal as well as external marketing. External marketing is marketing directed at people outside the company. Internal marketing is the task of hiring, training, and motivating able employees who want to serve the customers well. In fact, internal marketing must precede external marketing. It makes no sense to promise excellent service before the companys staff is ready to provide it. Managers who believe the customer is the companys only true profit center consider the traditional organisation chart- a pyramid with the president at the top, management in the middle, and front-line people and customers at the bottom-obsolete. Master marketing companies invert the chart.

4.

Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction, a term frequently used in marketing, is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals. The importance of customer satisfaction diminishes when a firm has increased bargaining power. For example, cell phone plan providers, such as AT&T and Verizon, participate in an industry that is an oligopoly, where only a few suppliers of a certain product or service exist. As such, many cell phone plan contracts have a lot of fine print with provisions that they would never get away if there were, say, a hundred cell phone plan providers, because customer satisfaction would be way too low, and customers would easily have the option of leaving for a better contract offer.

"Customer satisfaction provides a leading indicator of consumer purchase intentions and [1] loyalty." "Customer satisfaction data are among the most frequently collected indicators of market [1] perceptions. Their principal use is twofold:" 1. "Within organizations, the collection, analysis and dissemination of these data send a message about the importance of tending to customers and ensuring that they have a positive experience [1] with the companys goods and services." 2. "Although sales or market share can indicate how well a firm is performing currently, satisfaction is perhaps the best indicator of how likely it is that the firms customers will make further purchases in the future. Much research has focused on the relationship between customer satisfaction and retention. Studies indicate that the ramifications of satisfaction are most strongly realized at the extremes." On a five-point scale, "individuals who rate their satisfaction level as '5' are likely to become return customers and might even evangelize for the firm. (A second important metric related to satisfaction is willingness to recommend. This metric is defined as "The percentage of surveyed customers who indicate that they would recommend a brand to friends." When a customer is satisfied with a product, he or she might recommend it to friends, relatives and colleagues. This can be a powerful marketing advantage.) "Individuals who rate their satisfaction level as '1,' by contrast, are unlikely to return. Further, they can hurt the firm by making negative comments about it to prospective customers. Willingness to recommend is a key metric relating to customer satisfaction

A company can define its target market but fail to correctly understand the customers needs. Understanding customer needs and wants is not always simple. Some customers have needs of which they are not fully conscious. Or they cannot articulate these needs. Or they use words that require some interpretation. We can distinguish among five types of needs: 1. Stated needs 2. Real needs 3. Unstated needs 4. Delight needs

5. Secret needs Responding only to the stated need may shortchange the customer. Consider a woman who enters a hardware store and asks for a sealant to seal glass windowpanes. This customer is stating a solution and not a need. The salesperson may suggest that tape would provide a better solution. The salesperson met the customers need, not her stated solution.

5.

Organization Success

Not just increased sales, is the gaol of the firm. Because customer satisfaction is the path to profitability, customer focus is th logical point for profit planning The ultimate purpose of the marketing concept is to help organizations achieve their objectives. In the case of private firms, the major objective is profit; in the case of nonprofit and public organizations, it is surviving and attracting enough funds. A company makes money by satisfying customer needs better than its competitors. Most companies do not embrace the marketing concept until driven by circumstances. These are Sales Decline: When Sales fall, companies panic and look for answers. Today newspapers decline as people are more replying on Radio, TV and Internet for the news Slow Growth: Slow sales growth leads companies to search for new markets. They realize they need marketing skills to identify and select new opportunities Changing buying patterns: Many companies operate in markets characterized by rapidly changing customer wants. These companies need more marketing know-how if they are to track buyers changing values Increasing Competition: Complacent industries may be suddenly attacked by powerful competitors. AT&T was quite complacent in a regulated market-nave Telephone Company until government allowed other companies to sell Telephone equipments. Companies in deregulated industries all find it necessary to build up marketing expertise Increasing Marketing Expenditures: Companies may find their expenditures for advertising, Sales, Promotion, marketing Research and Customer Service to be poorly done. Management then decides to take a serious audit to improve its marketing Companies need to attract and retain customers through superior product offerings, which deliver the Customer satisfaction. This is also influenced by other departments who must cooperate in delivering this Customer Satisfaction In the course to converting into marketing orientation, a company faces 3 hurdles 1. Organized Resistance 2. Slow Learning 3. Fast forgetting Some company departments like R&D, Manufacturing, and Finance etc. believe a stronger Marketing department threatens their power in the organisation. Resistance is especially strong in the industries where Marketing is introduced for the first time-like law offices, colleges, deregulated industries and government offices. But in spite of resistance the Company president establishes a Marketing department, marketing talents are hired and seminars conducted, Marketing budget increased and Marketing planning and Control systems introduced. Companies face a difficult task in adapting ad slogans to International markets, many of which are interpreted wrongly