Syllabus for Marketing and sales PT 1

Unit I: Introduction to Marketing and Sales

1.What is Marketing
2.Importance of Marketing
3.Concepts of utility
4.What is Sales?
5.Role of Sales business

WHAT IS MARKETING
Students should understand the meaning of the term Marketing. Simply stated the
meaning of the term Marketing is ―performance of business activities that direct
the flow of goods from producers to consumers or users‘‘. It may be said that
marketing includes all those activities which effect changes in the ownership and
possession of goods and services.
According to the Marketing Guru Philip Kotler, ―Marketing is a social and
managerial process by which individuals and organization get what they need
and want through creating, offering and exchange products of value with others.‘‘
If we analyze the above definition, the following points will emerge to understand
the meaning of marketing:
a. discovering and translating consumer needs anddesires into products and
services.
b. creating demand for these products and services
c. serving the customersdemand
d. expanding the market even in the face of keen competition
Thus, the general aim of marketing is to have a regularflow of goods among
customers with a definite target to ensure the optimumsatisfaction of the
organization, customers and society.
CONCEPTS
These can be achieved if businesses
concerns conduct their marketing activities with responsibility and following the
clear-cut concepts which are
1. The product concept
2. The selling concept
3. The marketing concept
4. The societal marketing concept
The Product concept
The product concept is the oldest concept guidingproducers. It is believed that if
the product is good and reasonably priced it will fetch or attract many customers
and no special marketingefforts are required to be made. It is the quality of the
product that attracts the customers. But product oriented companies often design
their product with little or
no consumer/ customer
inputs. This concept does
not remain profitable in
the long run and
marketers have no
choice but to move to the
next concept.
This concept has failed in
operation.Companies
having produced quality
products have not been
able to push up the sales
unless other positive steps to design, attractively package and price the product
and place them improper distribution channels so as to bring them to the notice of
the prospective buyers or persons concerned and convince them that the
products have superior quality and fair price.
The Selling Concept
The second concept is the ‗‘Selling Concept.‘‘ Under this it is presumed that
customer will not normally buy unless they are approached and convinced which
means that consumer satisfaction is considered secondary , selling the product is
the prime consideration. This concept is used for goods which customers don‘t
buy normally, like vacuum cleaners, insurance etc. These goods are aggressively
sold by tracking down the target segment and sold on the virtue of the product
benefits. In the words of Kotler―there is littlemeasurement of what the public
wants and a lot of selling effort to get the public to accept policies that a few
want.‖
The Marketing Concept
Under this concept the organization tries its best to determine the needs, wants
and desires of the buyer‘s market and
finally takes steps to deliver the desired
satisfaction most effectively and efficiently. The organization believes that it can win the
loyalty of its customers only by giving them satisfactory services. Winning the
confidence of customer is as good as fulfilling the goals of the organization. Thus
we can say that marketing concept can be implemented by asking the following
three questions to yourself or to your organization:
1) What is the target market?
2) What are the needs, wants and demands of the target market?
3) How best can we deliver a value proposition?

The Social Marketing Concept

Although marketing concept has been accepted as one of the tools of satisfying
customers, it becomes difficult in practice to establish it.It demands proper
planning, persuasion skills,communication
skills, education and organization.
In this concept, the focus is on giving individual
satisfaction so far the customer is concerned,
by providing quality products at reasonable
price, good supply channels and maintain
public welfare. This attitude on the part of the
organization encourages customers to
patronize it and achieve long term profits. For
example, if a company produces a vehicle
which consumes less petrol but spreads pollution. This will result in only consumer
satisfaction and not the social welfare.
Primarily two elements are included under social welfare-high-level of human life and
pollution free atmosphere. Therefore, the companies believing in this concept direct all
their marketing efforts towards the achievement of consumer satisfaction and social
welfare.
IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING IN BUSINESS
The importance of Marketing has been recognized ever since the business came
into existence. In the present business scenario without Marketing an enterprise
would be unable to fight for its survival in the business world. Thus Marketing is
an important tool in the hands of business enterprise. Its importance to business
can be understood as under.
1. Importance of marketing for business enterprise – source of revenue
2. Importance of marketing to customers – satisfaction of needs and desires
and improvement in standard of living.
3. Importance of marketing to society – to assess the needs, habits and
feeling of customers to produce the desirable goods in the market.
the importance of Marketing can be better
understood as under:
Marketing and society/ consumers
Increase in the standard of living - Our today‘s modern society is
divided into three main classes: The Rich Class, the Middle class and the
Poor Class. The standard of living of all these classes will depend upon
the purchasing power of each class. Better standard of living,
fulfillment of various wants is possible through marketing. It facilitates theconsumer to
choose from the various brands available according to their
likes and dislikes at reasonable price.
Employment opportunities - Marketing helps in creating employment
opportunities to many people. Since the marketing process involves
various activities such as buying, selling, warehousing, transportation,
finance, risk taking etc,it provides employment for many to improve their
income levels.
Economic stability –Marketing plays a very important role in the
economic stability of the country. The economic stability depends upon the
balance between the demand and supply of products/services. For
maintaining the balance between the production and
consumption(demand and supply), marketing is necessary as it maintains
this balance and stabilizes the economy. It ensures stable price in the
market and can reduce price fluctuations to a large extent.
Creates Utility –Marketingis an economic activity. It creates ownership,
place, time utility and demand. The various activities of marketing helps in
creating utility. For example:Exchange of goods offered creates
ownership, time utility and place utility is created due to transportation and
warehousing. Thus marketing provides value to the goods and services by
providing them at the right time, right place and reasonable price.
Satisfaction of human wants –Marketing plays a significant role in the
distribution of goods and services to satisfy the needs and wants of the
consumers.
Marketing and organization
Gain income– The profit of any organization depends upon its income
and its future depends upon its profit. Organization can earn profit through
various activities. Marketing provides ―Market‖ to goods and services
which in turn fulfills the same.
Marketing information – Our modern economy is dynamic in
nature.Thelikes, dislikes, price, demand are changing rapidly and thus the
entrepreneur has to take decision according to the changed environment.
The entrepreneurs have to look for new products, new customers, new
market, new technology etc. All these information can be collected by the
entrepreneur through various marketing sources and thus adopt the same
to survive in the competition.
Source and channel of new ideas -Marketing is a significant aspect in
today‘s dynamic environment. The dynamic changes occurring in
marketing have become a source and channel of new ideas and guidingpolicies. With the
rapid change in tastes and preference of people,
marketing has to come up with the same.
Marketing as an instrument of measurement, gives scope for
understanding this new demand pattern and thereby produce and make
available the goods accordingly.
Decision making –Producers produce goods and services. It is very
important for them to know What to produce? Where to produce? How
much to produce? All these directly impact on the profit of the
organization. All these decision are important and major and hence
difficult to take. Marketing helps the producers to take the right decision at
the right time. Hence, ―Success‘‘ of any business and proper decision are
interdependent and which is possible due to marketing. With the effective
market forecasting technique it is possible for the marketers to project the
expected demand in advance to facilitate the producers or organization to
act accordingly.

Assignment 1.
A. SHORT QUESTIONS
1. What is Marketing?
2. What is the meaning of selling concept?
3. What is the concept of marketing?
4. What is the product concept of marketing?
5. What is the societal marketing concept?
B. Briefly explain the importance of marketing in relation to:
customer and society
organization
C. Distinguish between the selling concept and the Marketing
concept?
D. Fill in the blanks:
a) Marketing helps in ------------------ demand for products
and services.
b) Fulfilling the goals of the organization is as good as ---
-------------- the confidence of the customers.
c) ------------------- of any business and ------------------------
---- are interdependent and possible due to marketing.
d) Marketing is a -------------- and -------------- aspect in
today‘s dynamic and changing environment.
e) Marketing is an -------------------- activity.

CONCEPT OF UTILITY
Utility is the consumer‘s estimate of the product‘s overall capacity to
satisfy his or her needs. In that case the product may be ranked from the
most need satisfying to the least need satisfying.
How do consumer‘s choose among the products that might satisfy a given
need? We can explain this with the help of an example. Suppose, Mr Ravi
needs to travel 5 km to & froto work each day.MrRavi can think of a
number of products that will satisfy this need; walking, skating, a bicycle, a
motorcycle, acar, a taxi cab and a bus. These alternatives will constitute
his product choice set. Now if Mr.Ravi wouldlike to satisfy different needs
in travelling to work namely speed, safety, ease andeconomy, we will call
these his need set. Now each of the above products has a different
capacity to satisfy his various needs. Thus a bicycle will be slower, less
safe, a more effortful than a car, but it will be more economical. We can
ask Mr. Ravi to imagine the characteristic of an ideal product for his task
that would get him to his place of work in a split of second with absolute
safety, no effort and zero cost. Than the utility of each actual product
would depend on how close it can be to this ideal product. To illustrate,
suppose Mr. Ravi is primarily interested in the speed and ease of getting
to work. WHAT IS SALES
Sales is a vital sub-system of marketing management. Both sales and
marketing are used together as they need to work together. But in fact,
they are two very different functions and require very different skills.
In simple and general terms, sales is
1) A transaction between two parties where the buyer receives goods
(tangible or intangible goods), services and/or assets in exchange for
money.
2) An agreement between a buyer and seller on the price of a security.
Sales = Sell What’s in Stock
The job of Sales is to ―sell what‘s in stock‖. The company has theirspecific
products or services and the job of Sales is to sell those things which are in
stock.Sales develops relationships with customers and/or channel partners. They
knock down the doors, overcome any objections raised by the customer on
account of the product or services, negotiate prices and terms and often work
internally to be sure their customer‘s orders are filled.
he Sales is seen from inside the company out towards the customers. Their
horizon is focused entirely on sales and the revenue which has to be achieved
for this week, this month or thisquarter.
Marketing = Align with the
Customers, Now and for the
Future
A key job of Marketing is to
understand the marketplace from
the perspective of the customer
looking back towards the company
and helping the company to lead
where it should be in the future.
Marketing‘s job is to direct the
organization toward the segments,
or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably
compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product
offerings, pricing and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution
channel or end customers.
Without Marketing, Sales Suffers
This can be best understood with the help of the following example. The best
hunter even cannot bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. We
know that markets are rapidly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of
the changes, and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide
them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the
ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the
company needs to hunt next. This limits growth.
Sales needs to be focused on the now. You can‘t run a company unless your
sales team is focused on bringing in today‘s business. But you can‘t really ask
your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18
month plan to get there without losing focus on today‘s revenue.
IMPORTANCE OF SALES
In any business organization, be it medium or large, it is the sales department
that generates revenue. No matter how good your manufacturing and production
operation are, how latest your technology is, how tight your financial goals are or
how progressive your management thinking and techniques are, you must still
have a sales mechanism in place, or everything else is useless.The Sales
department consists of persons working together for the effective marketing of
products manufactured by the firm. It is the sales department which coordinates
and provides an efficient, economic and flexible administrative set up to ensure
timely movement of products from the buyers to the sellers.A sales organization
has a number of departments and performs the functions of planning, organizing
and controlling marketing and distribution of products.
NEED FOR A SALES ORGANISATION
―Sales are the life blood of business,‖ Sales organization is part and parcel of any
business firm. All the departments are carefully placed in a good sales
organization to achieve the best results.
A small firm does not need any sales organization as the proprietor himself can
sell all the products or in certain cases, he is assisted by one or two salesmen,
under his direct control. But when the firm or the business expands and
diversifies itself which may be due to extension of markets, production in large-
scale, competitive market etc., the need for a sales organization is felt.
The need arises because of the following factors:
1. When seeing the production in anticipation of demand, which must be sold.
2. To create demand for the products through efficient salesmen.
3. Orders have to be executed without delay.
4. Satisfactory action to be taken against complaints received from customers.
5. Timely collection of credit sales if any.
6. Keeping stock in hand for the future demand.
7. Maximum contribution to profit.
8. To enforce proper supervision of sales-force.
9. To divide and fix authority among the subordinates.
10. To locate responsibility.
IMPORTANCE OF SALES ORGANISATION:
A sales organisation is the mechanism through which a sales manager‘s
philosophy is translated into action. The sales organisation provides the vehicle
for making decisions on planning, organisation, selection and training of
salesmen, their motivation, directing and controlling them. It also provides vehicle
through which these decisions are implemented.
―A sale organisation is like a power-station sending out energy which is devoted
to the advertising and selling of particular lines and there is a tremendous waste
of energy between the power station and the points where it reaches the
consumers. Therefore, there arises the necessity of organizing the sales
department.‖ —Boiling

Assignment 2.
A. Explain the concept of utility?
B. What do you mean by sales?
C. How is sales important in business?
D. Give reasons why need for sales organization is felt?
E.Multiple choice questions:
a. The form of business organization that has the maximum sales in terms
of volume is the
partnership
corporation
Cooperative
multinational
b. The simplest form of business ownership is
Proprietorship
Partnership
Corporation
Cooperative
c. Which is advantageous for a sole proprietor
Ease of starting a business
Being your own boss
Proud of being an owner
All of the above.