Marketing mix is the combination of elements which play an essential role in delivering & promoting of the services & products to clients or consumers. In crux, it is about putting the service or product in the right place & at the right time for the right price (Abrams, 2010).
The components of marketing mix are often known as the four Ps of marketing, which are: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Product, these are the services or products which are offered by a business to its customers, comprising their physical characteristics, what does it do, how they are different from the products offered by its competitors & what benefits are provided by the product, beyond what the company has got, marketers need to pay special attention to the benefits the service or product of your company is offering & who are the best consumers to take an advantage of those benefits. This means defining the target market &developing a USP (unique selling preposition) for the product.
Price, how a marketers price their service or products so that the price offered by the company remains competitive but allows them to make a good profit. Pricing the product or service, could be tricky, since marketers need to calculate the value of what they are offering along with what it costs them in the materials, time & overheads to manufacture it. However, marketers also want to think about their product is worth what they are charging (Abrams, 2010).
Place, is also referred to as distribution, is where the business is selling its services or products & how it gets those services or products to their customers. Where can consumers receive & find the services offered by the company? It seems to be a basic question, except again, marketers have considered the service or product, market & price offered by the company. If company’s market does not use Amazon, then it would not make sense to have the company’s products offered on Amazon. If the product offered by company is a luxury item; they want to be in place which suggests refinement & quality, as opposed to frugality.
Promotion, the methods that marketers use to communicate the benefits & features of the services or products offer by the company to its target customers. This is where the marketers put all the information that they have gathered to work. Now the marketers have to get the people to their “stores”. Promotion is all about knowing where the market can be found, how to draft a message to induce the customers to check out the service/product offered by the company, & define the best way of delivering that message (i.e. interviews, social media, TV advertisements, etc.) (Arthur, 2008).
The Four Ps of Marketing
References
Abrams, R (2010), Successful Business Plan: Secrets and Strategies, (Palo Alto; California: Running ‘R’ Media), xxix, Sec. II p 47-288.
Arthur, A (2008), Best Practices: Building You Business with Customer-Focused Solutions. New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 125-27
Kotler, P (2011), Marketing Decision Making: A Model-Building Approach. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
A team is a group of individuals, working together to attain a mutual objective. Teams have distinct membership (that could either be small or large) & a set of activities to take part in. Individuals in a team work together on sets of interrelated tasks which are needed to attain a goal. Each individual in a team is accountable for contributing to the team, but the group as a whole is liable for the success of the team (Bayazit & Mannix, 2008).
Teams play an important role in organization. A team which works together recognizes the weaknesses & strengths of each member of the team. A benefit of having a strong teamwork in an organization is that team members & leaders become capable at distributing the tasks, so the tasks could be by the most qualified individuals. Without having a strong teamwork, it could be challenging for executives & managers to define which member of the group can best accomplish the tasks of a job. The other importance of team work could be that the work groups develop systems which allow them to accomplish tasks quickly & efficiently, which lets the organization to take more work & produce more revenues without adding more employees. Also, organizational teams often meet to discuss how to solve the issues of the organization (Costa, 2013).
A problem solving team is a temporary, cross functional group of individuals that come from different divisions of the organization, & hold different interests, skills & roles. The priority of the problem solving team is to provide a fast, permanent solution to a problem. The cross functional makeup of the team means the problem can be analysed from different perspectives (Cotton, 2010).
Self-Managed teams can be defined as the group of individuals that gradually assume responsibility in all aspects of work. Self-managing teams work together to attain a goal without a great deal of oversight. These are one of the most effective teams when they have independent, capable employees of the team. The team might report to a boss, but that boss does not participate actively in the team (Bayazit & Mannix, 2008).
Product
Cross functional teams are made by the workers of the organization, across specialities or functions. Individuals with distinct areas of expertise work together; they are mostly at around the equivalent level in the hierarchy & could often take decisions without management. Mostly, such types of teams are the temporary ones (Andrisani, 2008).
Virtual teams comprises of associates that are not situated in the same physical location, they might be in diverse countries, states or cities. They utilize technology & specific skills to attain common goals. They tend to be more projects & task oriented & less about social interactions (Costa, 2003).
References
Andrisani, P. J. (2008). Work attitudes and labor market experience: Evidence from the national longitudinal surveys. New York: Praeger.
Bayazit, M. & Mannix, E. A. (2013). Should I stay or should I go? Predicting team members intent to remain in the team. Small Group Research, 34(3), 290-321.
Costa, C. C. (2013). Work team trust and effectiveness. Personnel Review, 32(5), 605-423.
Cotton, J. L. (2010). Participation’s effect on performance and satisfaction. Academy of Management Review, 20(2), 276-278
A sole trader defines any business which is owned & controlled by a single individual, though they might employ workers. Some of the examples of sole traders that provide specialist services could be plasterers, decorators, plumbers, gardeners, electricians & newsagent’s shop. A sole trader does not have a separate legal assistance from their owner. As an outcome, the owners are responsible personally for the debts of the company & might be paying them from their own pocket, which is known as unlimited liability (Locke & Latham, 2009).The various advantages of the sole trader could be, firstly, as a sile trader, proprietor is in full control of his business, in the eventual sense, “sole proprietor is his own boss”, they do not have to consult other shareholders or directors, to consider their views or compromise their own vision for the occupation, meaning the sole trader could advance his business exactly as per his choice. Secondly, because the sole proprietor makes their decision alone, it could be simple & quick to make changes to the business to adapt to the changing situations, in other words sole traders have operational flexibility. Lastly, in the sole proprietorship, the businessperson is all in all. As no partners or co-owners are there, hence there is no possibility for the variations in opinion in case if the sole trader desires to disband the business. It is quite easy to dissolve & form, sole proprietorship is often utilized to test the new corporate ideas (Cohen & Bailey, 2007).
Price
However, there are certain disadvantages of sole traders such as a proprietor has limited resources at their command. The major rely of the proprietor is on funds & savings, & to a restricted level borrowings from friends & relatives. Hence, the possibility for fund raising is quite inadequate for a sole trader. This results in deters for expansion, & development of the company. Secondly, sole trader is a one man show and sole trader might be an expert in one or two fields, but cannot be expert in every field such as personnel, marketing, finance, production, etc. Thus, because of lack of relevant & educate knowledge the decisions taken by sile trader could be imbalanced. Lastly, the life of a sole proprietorship, merely rely on the life of the proprietor. When the sole trader permanently incapacitated, insane becomes insolvent or dies, there are high chances that the enterprise will close. It is also said that an enterprise also died with its sole trader (McClelland & Boyatzis, 2012).
References
Cohen, S.G., & Bailey, D.E. (2007). What Makes Teams Work: Group Effectiveness Research from the Shop Floor to the Executive Suite. Journal of Management, Vol.23, No. 3, pp. 239-290
McClelland, D. C., & Boyatzis, R. E. (2012). Leadership motive pattern and long-term success in management. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 737–743.
Locke, E.A. & Latham, G. P. (2009) Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist. 57(9). 705-717.
Planning in simple terms means, deciding in advance what needs to be done, when to be done, where to be done, how to be done & by whom it will be done. Planning bridges the gap between where we need to go & where we are in current state. Planning is the management’s primary function (Barney, 2014).
Planning is the process that holds various steps to be completed. The main steps involved in the planning process are, the first & key objective of process of planning is to establish goals & objectives of planning. Definite objectives should be set, i.e. what needs to be done, where to place & things needs to be done to accomplish it. The second step is to establish planning premises, i.e. assumptions should be set regarding the future understanding of the probable situations, and these are the situations under which activities of planning will be commenced. The third step is to determine & evaluate alternative course of actions, it is important to have an alternative course of action before deciding upon the exact plan. The fourth step is to sought out the available alternatives along with their strengths & weaknesses, planners need to assess the alternatives by providing due weightage to different facts involved. The fifth step is to select an action course from between various options; it is the plan that will be adopted to accomplish the objectives of the organization. The sixth step is formulating the derivative plans to give influence to & support the basic plan. Seventh step is to sequence the timings of the activities which are determined after formulating the derivative & basic plans. The last step is to take feedback & do follow-ups in order to be sure that the plans executed are working properly (Andrews, 2010).
The few benefits of Planning are: First, planning makes ideal use of all the available resources, it assists in reducing wastages of valued resources & avoids the reduplication of them; it intends to provide lowest possible costs with the greater returns, which results in overall efficiency. Second, there are many risks involved in any biasness, planning assists in forecasting those business risks & helps in taking the necessary precautions to avoid those risks & prepares for the uncertainties of future in advance, which results in reduction of business risks. Third, often because of efficient planning in all the departments of the company, there is well coordination with each other; also the plans of the organization are coordinated with each other. Fourth, it is impossible without planning to provide proper direction, i.e. giving useful guidance, accurate instructions & proper information to the subordinates; it is because planning tells us what needs to be done, how will it be done & when will it be done; thus, planning provides right direction (Clampitt. 2011).
References
Clampitt, P. (2011). Communicating for managerial effectiveness. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Andrews, K.R (2010) The Concept of Corporate Strategy. Homewood, Illinois: Dow-Jones Irwin.
Barney, J. (2014) ‘Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage’. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.
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