Importance of Marketing Concepts and Strategies for Contemporary Organizations

Q1. Business Orientations

This assignment has been designed to allow students the opportunity to explore the underlying importance and application of marketing concepts, and to develop key academic skills.

It is proposed that the concept of marketing orientation has a number of components namely:

• Customer orientation: understanding customers well enough continuously to create superior value for them;
• Competitor orientation: awareness of  the  short-  and  long-term  capabilities  of competitors;
• Interfunctional co-ordination: using all company resources to create value for target customers;
• Organisational culture: linking employee and managerial behaviour to customer satisfaction;
• Long-term creation of shareholder value: as the overriding business objective.

By reference to academic literature, critically evaluate this perspective on marketing orientation, in relation to other business orientations and the contribution of a marketing orientation to contemporary organisations’ success.

You are required to produce an  essay that demonstrates your understanding of key aspects of different business orientations and the growing importance of customer orientation to sustain competitiveness.

The essay should be addressed in an MBA academic style. It should have:

• A sound theoretical and conceptual perspective, containing evidence of critical debate
• Appropriate academic business management language.
• Adequate secondary literature supported by appropriate Harvard referencing.

This assignment has been designed to allow students the opportunity to explore the underlying importance and application of marketing concepts to benefit a given organisation.

“Positioning and segmentation are distinct parts of the [marketing] strategy and provide us with some extremely powerful tools; but ultimately they are linked by the central issue of focusing on satisfying customer’s needs in ways that are superior to competitors” (Hooley et al, 2012 p183).

Hooley et al (2012) Marketing Strategy & Competitive Positioning. 5th ed. Harlow Pearson.

By reference to academic literature evaluate and critically assess the concept of Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP). With supporting evidence, use a local industry or  sector to explain how different organisations within this sector of activities have applied STP to demonstrate your learning and application of this topic.

You should also Indicate how any company could apply the concepts around STP, making generic recommendations.

You are required to produce an essay that demonstrates your understanding of this key aspect of marketing management.

• A sound theoretical and conceptual perspective, containing evidence of critical debate with reference to appropriate academic literature

• A sound examination of STP and its application in industry, with evidence, showing an effective practical foundation

• Some generic management recommendations.

You must submit both assignments through the  work to the ‘Activities – Assignment’ area of the Power School Learning site. The deadline for submission . It is suggested that you submit a pdf version of your document to maintain the structure/style.

You are also requested to submit a hard copy of the assignment in class on 26th September.

Both assignments will be submitted in essay format with an approximate word limit of 1500 words, +/- 10% each (excluding cover page, contents page, titles and references list [as applicable]). University policy regarding the presentation of references must be followed.

For the purpose of clarity the total number of words should be within 3000 words, +/- 10% each (excluding cover page, contents page, titles and references list [as applicable])

Note that your work will be subjected to Plagiarism checking. You are therefore advised to ensure that your submission is within the University Policy on Plagiarism.