Marketing Management doc

Marketing Management —Page 1

ASSIGNMENT

Q1. How can a marketer circumvent those uncontrollable forces that limit his decision￾making ability?

Answer 1)

Marketers solve problems through the Planning, Implementing & controlling phases

of their work. Basically they face two problems to achieve -

• Determining Goals

• Developing Plans

Before Marketers can even attempt to find a solution, they must recognize that a problem

exists. This is not always easy. Often symptoms are mistaken for problems. For example, a

Marketer who is concerned with declining sales may describe the decline as a problem &

may assume that the product is nearing the end of its product life cycle, whereas the decline

may be a symptom of problems like poor servicing, overpricing etc.

Effective Marketers try to anticipate problems. The solution is usually the result of

searching for & sifting through raw information.

The performance of the marketing function can be viewed as being concerned essentially

with problem solving & decision making throughout the three stages of planning,

implementing & controlling the marketing function.

The most significant change in recent times in the business environment is the recognition

that information gathering is crucial. Since the primary function of marketing is to assess

want-satisfying opportunities & match resources to them, the knowledge that flows from

information is important for marketing.

Today, the need for efficient management of information is greater than ever. Thus

information is the foundation & major source for the problem solving & decision making

that marketing executives confront daily. To grasp the nature of information fully, we need

to understand the manners in which systematic data gathering pulls together the information

needed for decision-making.

Data Information:

Data and information are not the same. Information is data that have been converted to

a useful form for decision-making. It is relevant, timely, accurate, cost-effective and reduces

risk in decision making

Marketing managers face an immense volume of raw data coming from many kinds of

internal and external sources such as accounting records, reports from sales force,

government statistics and so on. If these data are to be useful, the data flow must be

managed.

Data Classification:

Data can be classified as external or internal. External data are generated outside the

firm. Examples are competitor’s sales, customer buying habits, media rates, and middlemen