Marketing Managemnt Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing Managemnt - Assignment ExampleThe focus in this paper is on merchandising management that has gained increasing brilliance in recent years owing to the notion of globalization and internationalization which has given way to the boundary-less movement of goods and services. Marketing for products that are sold across various cultures, languages, tastes, demographics and external conditions is no longer a simplistic job- it requires adequate and periodic management so that the product achieves a strategical fit with the diverse external environment. No longer can marketers focus their efforts on just the cardinal Ps (product, price, promotion, place)- they have come to realize the blooming significance of 4Cs Consumer (as opposed to Product), woo (as opposed to Price), Convenience ( as opposed to Place) and Communications ( as opposed to Promotion). Thus, the above indicates the growing importance of merchandising management which enables managers and executives to deal w ith strategic marketing challenges that the organizations face every day. An important task for marketing managers is the creation of value for consumers. The challenge is thus, how to offer that value? The idea of customer relationship management (which is a part of marketing management) stems from the notion of value creation. At the heart of successful marketing efforts is the ability of the smart set to provide a product that satisfies the demand of customers. Towards this end it is important to define what a need is- a need is defined as a felt deprivation for something. So, for instance, to feel thirsty is a need that has to be satisfied. A want refers to the means by which that need is satisfied. Thus, how the thirst is quenched (through water, drink, and juice) would become a want. Marketers must target customer needs and receive wants. On the contrary, however, it is observed today that marketers are creating needs rather than satisfying them. To this end, the importanc e of product comes into play. The product is the crux of marketing- Marketing is grounded in consumers and consumers demand products to satisfy their needs. The product is the starting point for most marketing efforts. It is interesting to note that a product consists of v layers although it may appear as a single, holistic object to us. The central part of the product is referred to as the content. It is this core that forms the basis for the other layers (including basic, expected, augmented and potential product). An example would be of a Nikon camera. Its core benefit would be to allow the user to take photographs and make videos with ease. The actual product will interpret of the brand name (Nikon), high resolution, carrying case etc. The augmented product would be warranty, demonstration and even off etc. Core benefits are often represented as order qualifiers or the bare token(prenominal) necessary for products to stay in the market (Homburg et al., 2005). This would sim ply mean the delivery for what is promised. A product or a brand is s promise, and when it is fulfilled in the quantity and quality desired by consumers the phenomenon is termed as core benefits or order qualifiers. For instance, the basic attribute of a bank is to offer accurate guardianship of consumer accounts. Bottled/mineral water provides consumer with a basic minimum level of ingredients or required calorie intake. generalisation studies from research have revealed that core benefits are a subset of the larger group customer benefits which encompasses not yet core benefits but also add-on benefits as discussed earlier. These customer benefits are viewed as the constructive set of customer relationship (Homburg et al., 2005). The core of a product is not tangible- it takes the form of a benefit or an advantage that a consumer may have from using it (Homburg et al., 2005). Thus, the core of a product is in abstract form and cannot be touched. Alternately, core defines the n eed that marketers