In this simulation, you continue in your role of Senior Vice President for Marke

Question

In this simulation, you continue in your role of Senior Vice President for Marketing at Enhanced Analytics, Inc., a provider of marketing and consulting services, with headquarters in Austin, Texas. In this role, you report directly to the CEO of the company and are responsible for decision-making and marketing strategy. You oversee a department with 25 employees at the company.

The company's board of directors thinks that a reorganization of the company will improve decision-making and profitability. You have just found out that the board has been in discussions with the company's CEO regarding the appropriate funding level and structure of each department. The activities of each department and office will be reviewed within the next 60 days. A prominent member of the board thinks that funding for the marketing department - your department - should be reduced significantly. In his opinion, primary emphasis and the most funding should go to the management and finance areas.

You disagree. While most funding in your department is used to plan and create specific marketing campaigns, some of the money is spent on training and on keeping your staff up to date on the latest technologies and trends in marketing management. You think both activities are essential and a reduction in funding will be detrimental to the long-term success of the department. A reduction in funding will also result in a need to lay off staff.

In your role as head of the department, you are given an opportunity to present your views. There is an apparent lack of appreciation for marketing among some of the folks who make up the reorganization committee. The CEO of the company admitted as much at breakfast, this morning, when she has asked you to prepare a persuasive presentation to convince the reorganization committee of the importance of marketing within the organization.

Along with your in-person presentation at the committee's next meeting, your task is to prepare a written report for the committee members. Prepare a written report for the members of the reorganization committee, containing the following sections:

1. Marketing Management - introduce the concept of marketing, its importance and application

2. Case Study - introduce and describe an example of a company (choose a well-known company that your audience can easily recognize and relate to) and illustrate how marketing is an essential function within the organization. You may use sources such as the company's annual report, scholarly articles found using Google Scholar and articles from business periodicals, such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and BusinessWeek. Since this is a persuasive report, make sure to use specific data and facts that are both truthful and convincing.

3. Lifelong Learning - explain the importance of continuous learning and of staying up to date in the field of marketing.

4. Conclusion - sum up your key points and ask the committee to maintain or increase the funding for your department. Include outside research to support your ideas and your conclusion. There is no page limit to this assignment. The assignment will be considered well-done if it contains all the required sections, if it is clearly written and your thoughts and ideas are supported by specific data and research.

Explanation / Answer

        In the modern business scenario, marketing is considered key to the growth and profitability of any brand. Most of the big brands that we know of as highly successful have used their marketing strategies successfully to influence and attract their customers and it is their marketing and advertising which is chiefly behind their success. Apart from market penetration and positioning, there are many more things which come under marketing and are essential to make a brand successful. Ignoring or underestimating the power of marketing can prove really costly for a company. Marketing involves multiple things from choosing target market and segmenting customers into market segments as well as understanding their buying behavior and providing them with superior value. (Boundless, n.d.) In fact marketing decisions have to be chiefly guided by consumers. Marketing does not just serve as a link between the company and its customers but instead it offers key information for making many other important decisions related to product development and forming growth strategies also.

We have plenty of examples in the industry where successful marketing strategies have resulted in growth and profits as per the expectations. In fact all big brands in the industry boast of a great marketing strategy also. It is because their success depends on the consumers’ perception of their brand and this is why most big companies devote a large part of their revenue to marketing and advertising. So, the key thing is that if marketing is ignored it will result in a fall in sales and thus profits as well. We already know of Coca cola as a globally successful company. The way this brand markets itself would hardly be hidden from anyone. Coca Cola spends heavily on advertising and marketing. Apart from advertising over digital media, it also runs campaigns and tries to remain connected with its target audience. The question is that why it does so if marketing does not provide any big tangible benefits. The matter of the fact is that most of a company’s profits originate from successful marketing and the companies which neglect marketing also have to pay its cost. In fact the name Coca Cola is so well known to us because of its special concentration on the marketing of the brand. Marketing does not let this name fade from its consumers’ minds and till it remains there the brand will manage to remain among the leading brands in this world and the industry. Recently Coca Cola saw a drop in profits. Its earnings were hit by the slow sales growth. The key things to watch are the strategic changes that Coca Cola has made. It has announced that it will cut $1 Billion on costs by 2016. (Bond, 2014) According to an article that appeared in financial times, the brand was also facing weakness in US, its largest market due to growing health concerns among the consumers. The company’s sales volume rose just 2 percent as compared to 4 percent in 2012. The company has decided that it will cut down costs in data, information technology and supply chain system and use the savings to revamp its marketing strategy. The company is then going to reinvest the $1 Billion in a fresh marketing push which includes television, print and digital advertising. (Bond, 2014) The strategy is aimed at boosting sales.

The case of Coca Cola also makes it clear that how important it is for companies to not lose attention of their target market. Even a well established brand like coca cola knows that it sales are going to hit if it does not continuously pay attention to the marketing of its brand. In fact marketing needs continuous attention and push. Once you stop paying attention to marketing sales will fall again. The same reflects in the marketing strategies of other important brands like Pepsi also. Brand even after they have grown mature need to remain focused on marketing and it is like learning and changing continuously since the market conditions and consumers’ preferences also keep changing.

It would not be difficult for everyone to understand that marketing is vital to being profitable and even if we have seen a decline in sales we can regain momentum by giving marketing a fresh push just as Coca cola has decided to do. If we give marketing a fresh push, it will revitalize the whole business. Keeping all these points in mind, I will request the committee to maintain the funding for the marketing department if it is not possible to increase it. Cutting down of funding will only result in declining sales and slow down our growth. Apart from that the changing market conditions also indicate that we would need to pay extra attention and put extra emphasis on our marketing strategy since without it getting any new avenues of profit would be impossible.

References:

Defining Marketing (n.d.). In Boundless. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from https://www.boundless.com/marketing/boundless-open-textbook/an-overview-of-marketing/introduction-to-marketing/defining-marketing/

Bond, S. (2014). Coca-Cola to cut another $1bn in costs as profit slips. In Financial times. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4cd2c652-989f-11e3-8503-00144feab7de.html#axzz2wWW6PLnE

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