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The building blocks of a marketing system!

A company’s core marketing system includes the suppliers, the company, the marketing intermediaries, and the target customers. The success of the company is also affected by the presence of the competition and other segments of the public. Management must observe and plan for all of these factors to serve and satisfy the specific set of needs of a chosen target market.

• Selection of suppliers:

A company has to choose suppliers that offer the best combination of quality, delivery time, guarantee and low cost. Let’s say a company involved in the manufacture of confectionery has to purchase sugar; cocoa, caramel, milk powder, etc. Labor, equipment, fuel, electricity and other factors of production will also be obtained. If the company’s product has a good market, you can opt for continuous production. If you are a growing company, you cannot opt ​​for bulk production, but only supply goods against confirmed orders. In any case, the choice of providers is determined by a main factor called “cost”. Of course, quality can never be compromised, so the company must decide whether to buy the inputs or manufacture them on its own.

A company’s relationship with suppliers should be a long-term one, as any sudden change in the supplier’s environment will have a substantial impact on the company’s marketing operations. Sudden supply shortages, labor strikes and other events can interfere with keeping delivery promises to customers. This will result in decreased sales in the short term and a loss of goodwill in the long term. Backorders lead to lost customers and, over time, their trust. Businesses should plan for an alternate source of supply to avoid the risk of over-reliance on any one source of supply.

• Company

The marketing department has to work together with the other departments of the company, namely finance, production, personnel, and research and development, while designing and implementing its marketing plans.

Finance department: the funds available to carry out the marketing plans should be consulted.

Production department: to measure market demand and decide on the supply of products based on demand.

R&D – development of new products.

• Intermediate Marketing:

Channel members are the link between the company and customers. Agents and brokers find customers who are wholesalers or retailers to take title and sell the merchandise. There are also physical distribution companies that help store and move goods from the warehouse to the destinations. Marketing executives need to deal with these intermediaries cautiously to improve the operational efficiency of the marketing function. Logistics companies, carriers, and airlines help move goods from one place to another.

• Competitors:

All business enterprises in a particular market segment live for the same resources and customers. A car manufacturing company in a car industry has to compete with other car manufacturers as well as two-wheelers. This implies that the competition can present itself in different ways and each company must identify the potential threat of competitors, study their activities and capture their movements to win over the competition.

• Audience

A company must keep an eye on people’s preferences to meet their needs and companies are also expected to give something back to society in the form of social welfare measures. People belonging to different cultural groups with different attitudes, lifestyles and tastes have a great impact on a company’s ability to achieve its goals.

Markets, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous, must serve the purpose of satisfying customers by providing more than what is asked for. This discussion is relevant to the factors that govern the microenvironment of a marketing plan and there are larger forces in the external environment looming, say, social, political, legal, environmental, and the like, that must be tactically managed by management to overcome. challenges and seize the opportunity.