INTRODUCTION
Marketing is known as the activity and procedures for developing, communicating, exchanging and delivering offerings that have some value for partners, clients, customers and community at large (Baker and Saren, 2016). This is the function that helps firm in communicating value and benefits of its product to customers in an effective way. The contribution of marketing is high in increasing sales and profit ratios of organization. Chosen organization for this assignment is ALDI which is a discount supermarket chain headquartered in Essen, Germany. The manager of company applies new marketing strategies to develop and satisfy market condition and customer such as product that supporter for environmental, healthy and nutrition. Manager are more concern with their promotion activity, they have establish different E marketing process like like promotion on their Facebook page and also line promotion such as television, radio, magazines and newspaper etc.
This report covers key responsibilities and roles of marketing function and its interlink with other departments. Apart from this marketing mix is applied to planning process for attaining business objectives. At last marketing plan is developed for ALDI in this project.
TASK 1
P1
In the competitive business market, it is highly essential for every business organization to effectively promote its goods and services in market and convey benefits to customers. The marketing concept refers to the strategy that companies execute to satisfy needs of customers, maximize sales, increase profits and beat market competition. There are five concepts of marketing which companies adopt and implement. These concepts includes production, process, marketing, selling and societal marketing concept. In Cadbury, marketing plays vital role in developing good relations with customers. The process of marketing includes 4 steps, i.e., situation analysis, marketing strategy, marketing mix decisions and implementation and control.
Concept of marketing:
The concept of marketing is a belief that organizations should analyses needs and preferences of customers and make rational decisions for satisfying those needs and beat the competition. It is a business philosophy in which main focus of firm is to satisfy needs of target market. There are five concepts of marketing including production, product, selling, marketing and societal marketing concept.
Current and future trends of marketing:
In present scenario, marketing plays crucial role in growth and success of company. Firms are more emphasize on satisfaction and retention of customers instead of generating high sales. With the help of marketing, company can develop strong relationship with customers. The marketing exist in today's society is the mixture of previous trends that have been enhanced upon like print and TV ads with new strategies emphasize on inbound practices. Today, the most commonly used marketing tactics includes social media marketing, targeted emails, text message advertisements etc. In future, it is expected that the trends in marketing would continue to grow as easy access to goods and services and technology increases. Telemarketing and TV advertisements will continue to decline in effectiveness as forum options ongoing to become common place.
There are various responsibilities and roles of marketing function in ALDI that are defined below:
Defining a managing brand: Marketing plays vital role in defining and managing brand of company. It helps in creating effective brand image of firm in market. In ALDI, marketing function helps in developing eye catching image of brand in eyes of customers that helps in attracting them more towards firm (Desselle and et. al., 2016).
Market research: One of the key responsibility of marketing function is research which assist company in determining market opportunities and get better understanding regarding needs of customers. It also assists firm in understanding strengths and weaknesses of competitors so that effective actions can be taken for protecting business with existing competitors. By understanding industry reports, contacting customers to survey their attitudes and needs and analyses market data, the marketing department of ALDI conduct its own research.
Communication: Marketing department develop communication materials and plan campaigns to promote goods and services in market. Depending on the budget availability, company develop email marketing programs, advertising campaigns, create promotional content for firm website and right product Publications or press release. In ALDI, marketing function helps in developing effective Communications with customers and satisfying their needs and requirements in more effective way (Brassington and Pettitt, 2013).
Sales support: Marketing function highly contributes in increasing sales of the company. Its main responsibility is to promote goods and other offerings of enterprise in market which in turn results in increasing sales and maximizing profitability. In ALDI, marketing function plays crucial role in communicating its products to market which supports in generating sales for product. It assists maximizing profit ratio and attaining goals and objectives of company.
P2
Roles and responsibilities of Marketing department are interlinked with other departments of business enterprise. Functions and activities of one department are highly linked with others. It is very important for a company that marketing department and other functional unit must be interlinked just because it will have the responsibilities for growing revenue, increasing market share and contribute to company growth and profitability. Its is basic that customer needs and wants should be the main motive of every organization and all its activities. So manager of company mainly focus to increase the responses and improve the relationship between marketing and other department of company. For collecting proper information about market trends, manager of ALDI requires to conduct research. Interrelationship of Marketing function with other department are defined below:
Human Resource Department and marketing
Human Resource Department and Marketing department are interrelated with each other as human resource hire skilled employees for marketing department so that all its activities can be carried out in an effective way (Dibb and Simkin., 2013). The main role of Human Resource Department is to recruit and select skilled workforce which is able to accomplish predetermined goals and objectives of company. ALDI, a crucial role played by Human Resource Department for marketing by hiring skilled and Competent workforce for company so that its operations are carry out effectively and firm is enable to promote its goods and services in more appropriate manner.
Marketing and Finance
Marketing and Finance are considered as the essential pillars of company on which the whole revenues and profits rely upon. The main role of finance department is to prepare budgets and allocate funds to each department so that at all the activities can be performed successfully. It helps in running day to day operations of company so that at its goals and objectives can be accomplished. In ALDI, Marketing department it is interrelated with finance department as it allocates budget to marketing for conducting its activities in proper way and attains set targets of company (Jones and Rowle., 2011).
Marketing and production department
The main responsibility of production department is to convert raw materials into final goods for fulfill requirements of customers. Effective products can be developed only when company has the knowledge and understanding about needs and preferences of customers. In ALDI, Marketing department provide information regarding market trends customer needs to Production department which helps it in manufacturing products as per the market needs. In this way, both departments are interlinked with each other and together contribute in the expansion of business.
Sales and marketing function:
Activities of sales and marketing department are interrelated with each other. Effective marketing is the way through which managers enable to improve sales and profits of business. The contribution of marketing department is high in maximizing sales by attracting numerous customers towards firm. In ALDI, marketing department use various tools and techniques that helps in conveying value and benefits of product to customers. Effective promotion of product by marketing department helps sales department in generating higher sales and competing their sales target. All this will help firm in generating high profits and maintaining its sustainability in market for longer term (Desai, 2013).
It is observed that marketing alone cannot be the reason for the improvement of performance and productivity of an organization. All other department of firm are linked with marketing department and perform specific function that have important part in improving the market place of company. Such as marketing section does effective promotion activity in order to attract more customer and sales section supplies goods according to the demand of people.
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TASK 2
P3
One of the fundamental tool in marketing is the "Marketing Mix". It is mainly defined as the set of marketing tool principally uses by company to pursue its defined marketing objectives in the target market. In simple words, it is a collection of series of factors that can be controlled by a company in order to influence customer purchasing pattern regarding a particular product or service.
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7P's of Marketing |
ALDI |
LIDL |
|
Product |
The Company affirm to provide reasonable or affordable food products usually made of same quality like any other branded product. Products of Aldi generally sourced from selected supplier and further branded under their own name as to have an adequate control over the ultimate cost and total production (Zgarrick, 2015). Other than beverages and food product, the firm also deals feeling fresh vegetable and fruits, stationery, beauty and health products, household goods, electronic items, clothes and soft tools. Apart from this, it is also having a mobile virtual network operator in countries like Germany, Australia, Netherland and Belgium. |
It is also a supermarket chain that gained popularity for selling products at discounted price. Also it has positioned itself as "go to shop" where customers can get mediocre range products at reasonable prices. It offers large variety of products including fruits and vegetables, frozen item, bakery products, health related items, baby products, cleaning and household goods, spirits and beers (Desselle and Alston, 2016).. |
|
Place: |
ALDI is selling its product in more than 18 countries. According to a source, it has been identified that almost every week company open a store in Britain. It procures all its items or products in bulk quantity from its suppliers and store them at their warehouses (Lamb and et. al., 2011). The company is gaining popularity for maintaining a regional appearance like placing the name of it stores according to specific region. For example: In Switzerland, Aldi is well known as Aldi Suisse. Apart from this, aims to satisfy its customer by selling its product online. |
It operates in more than 10000 locations via 28 US and European Countries. Its main distribution center is situated in U.S. The distribution channel of Lidl is well organized as eliminates the concept of mediator or middle man i.e. it believes in doing direct dealing from the local market. |
|
Price |
The company gains popularity for selling cheap price and quality products which ultimately results in making their customer base stronger. As a result, Aldi gives tough competition to its available competitors. Apart from this, there are various other pricing policies used by firm like psychological pricing, competitive pricing and unit pricing strategy (Hauer, 2011). |
The company gains high competitive advantage because of its unique strategy called as zero waste and no frills (Dibb and Simkin, 2015). As per these strategy, products are displayed in the cartons which are actually going to be delivered to customer. The store also keeps a minimum level of required staff in order to avoid extra cost. The company mainly targets middle Class Section of the society who are little price sensitive because of their limited budget of spending. The company claims to offer such products that value their money and provide them satisfaction. Some of its common pricing policy include penetration pricing and competitive pricing strategy. The result of adopting such strategies enable firm to gain high competitive advantage over its competitors. |
|
Promotion: |
Aldi claims to use cost saving strategy for promoting its product i.e. it believes in investing very small proportionate or negligible amount for promoting its products in the market. In fact, in Germany it is not keeping a marketing department for advertising its goods or services. All it offers are some Swap and Save Super Buys that seizes the attention of customer. Although in countries like Australia, United Kingdom and United States, company is making large use of electronic, display and print media to advertise its stores (Papasolomou and Melanthiou., 2012). |
The company has adopted several promotional strategies for seizing the attention of customers. Apart from focusing on providing best quality product at affordable prices, Lidl also laid stress on bringing the consumer inside a store so that he/she can actually buy (Jones and Rowley, 2011). Some of its popular channel of promotion include newspapers, magazines, leaflets, television, ad campaigns and hoardings. Along with this, it also believes in taking the advantage of digital marketing in sending SMS to regular customer and keep them updating about latest offers. |
|
People: |
The firms lack in providing lower customer service because their employees do not assist its consumers in selecting product. This is probably because Aldi has kindly design store layout where everything is classified into proper section which minimizes the requirement of number of employees on every floor. This ironically gives high competitive edge to the firm over its others competitors as Aldi become more focused on giving training to its employees and making them more effective and efficient. |
At Lidl, employees are getting attractive salary for their hard work whilst on the job. However their performances are evaluated on the basis of number of items scanned during the whole day. High training standards are set only to ensure one can scan maximum number of product fastly and conveniently that ultimately results in meeting customer needs (Lamb and McDaniel, 2011). It employees more than 315000 employees who all are well trained and groomed with an aim to satisfy customers. |
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Process |
As the firm has designed its store layout in a very thoughtful manner which results in finding product easily or in less time. Also the company focused on keeping limited number of products that are made of high quality and selling it at reasonable rate. Along with this, its products usually have large barcodes which help their employees in quick identification and fast billing (Perreault., 2010). |
The primary process of company is mainly emphasizing on buying and selling as much as good as possible at an affordable price. Involvement of customer in any of their procedure is minimal. Everything in the store is placed or kept in a well-organized manner that makes easier for consumer to look after products without creating much chaos. |
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Physical Evidence: |
The company gained popularity all across the world for its global pricing, standardization and business processes. Nearly about 85%of its total stock are sold under its own private label and rest all from well famous brands. Its strategy of keeping everyday low prices remains same even at global level which results in giving them high competitive advantage over their competitors. |
Traditional and linear laid out manner of Lidl gives them high competitive advantage over its competitors. This help customers in finding goods in easiest manner. Also because of its Yellow and Blue brand logo colors, it become easier for customer to recognize and find it throughout their surrounding areas (Malhotra and Birks, 2012). |
TASK 3
P4
Marketing plan: It refers to the formal document that provides direction to marketing manager of firm for their future course of action. It includes all the information that helps firm in promoting its product effectively (Rossi and McCulloch., 2012).
Company overview:
ALDI is one of the well-known multinational supermarket chain which is operated in around 20 countries. The company is headquartered in Essen, Germany and it is operated more than 10,000 stores at different places. It was established in year 1946 by Karl Albrecht and Theo Albrecht. The company wants to introduce new payment service for customers which makes it easy for them to made payments of their purchases without wasting their time. This will help company in attracting more number of customers towards firm.
Mission: The mission statement of ALDI is To satisfy needs of customers by providing them high quality products.
Vision: The vision statement of ALDI is to be a leading discount supermarket chain in all over the world and gain high loyalty of customers.
Objectives:
- To increase sales of products by 20% in next 2 years.
- To maximize market, share from 15% by year 2021.
STP:
Segmentation: It refers to the process of dividing market into homogeneous subgroups. ALDI divides its market on the basis of behavioral segmentation.
Target group: The target group of ALD includes household and individuals.
Positioning: ALDI positioned itself strongly in Germany. Its unique selling point is spending a little, live a lot. Firm sale high quality products at affordable prices which creates good brand image of company in market.
Situational analysis: In business, world it is also defines as the activities that manager uses to examine the internal and external environment to get the knowledge about customer and capabilities of company. Manager does SWOT analyses to determine the marketing behavior of company.
Strength:
- The company has achieved extra ordinary growth in last few year just by providing goods and a very low offering.
- Company have a strong supplier relationship that maintain an effective demand and supply chain.
Weakness
- They do not focus on single product and keep on changing the goods that might effect the buyer.
- The manager of company are not able adapt the technology changes.
Opportunities
- They manager have the chance to increase the brand loyalty and awareness.
- The company can focus to expand their business by offering more organic and fresh food items.
Threats
- There are number of competition in retail industry so product are available at lower price.
- Nowadays customer prefer to buy goods online rather visiting to stores.
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Marketing budget |
||||||
|
Particulars |
1st year |
2nd year |
3rd year |
4th year |
5th year |
|
|
Initial money |
6000 |
7000 |
10000 |
14000 |
18000 |
|
|
Investment |
15000 |
24000 |
29000 |
12000 |
||
|
Total |
6000 |
22000 |
34000 |
43000 |
30000 |
|
|
Marketing outlay |
||||||
|
Promotion |
6000 |
3000 |
4000 |
3000 |
3000 |
|
|
sales publicity |
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
2500 |
|
|
Direct selling |
4000 |
1500 |
4000 |
4000 |
4000 |
|
|
Total |
13000 |
7500 |
11000 |
10000 |
9500 |
|
Monitoring and control: After preparing the overall plan, it is the responsibility of marketing manager of ALDI to implement it successfully and monitor and control all the activities in order to ensure that all activities are done in right way. Firm also take corrective measures if required. Manager of company applies different types of tool in order to control and monitor various project such as APOP( Advance product quality planning), PPAP (Production part Approval process) that help in increasing the efficiency of company (Silver and et. al., 2012).
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CONCLUSION
From the above given project, it can be summarized that marketing plays crucial role in success and growth of organization. It helps firm in generating high sales and profit ratios and attaining preset goals and objectives of company. There are various key roles and responsibilities of marketing including promoting and maintaining brand image, communication etc. Different departments within firm are interlinked with marketing department and work collectively to attain objectives of company. Marketing mix includes set of marketing tools which are used by company for perusing its market objectives. Marketing plan is a blue print that depicts about future course of actions that are going to be taken by firm. Successful implementation of plan helps in attaining goals and objectives of company.
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