The Ps and Qs of Marketing - Ashok Pundir

Are you an extrovert as well as an introvert? Do you like people and do you have good relational skills?  Are you a good listener? Can you analyse the dynamics of a situation? And, above all, are you a good communicator? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you can look at marketing as a career. Certainly a career in marketing demands all of these and more from a person. The extrovert - introvert contradiction may be puzzling but it is now accepted that an equal blend of both is a trait, which makes for a good team leader. The great Phillip Kotler, a leading name in marketing, has foreseen that some companies will be looking at personality traits which include: Competence, Courtesy, Credibility, Reliability, Responsiveness and, of course, Communications.

So what is marketing? Is it not the same thing as sales?
Well, the line separating these two may seem rather blurred to many but they are different and have specific functions. The function of marketing in over all management is to create, promote and deliver goods and services to customers, And how it differs from a sales function is exemplified by - ‘Marketing’ is finding products for a market, and ‘Sales’ is finding a market for the products’. This old classic story is worth repeating in this context. A shoe company sends a sales person down to a remote backward country. He sees no one wearing shoes and concludes that there is no potential here for selling shoes as no one was wearing them. Well, the company sends in another person, who returns and declares that there is a tremendous potential, as no one has any shoes. One can easily relate this in terms of a sales person’s and a marketing person’s perception.

So, then what does a marketing professional do?
The basic tasks for marketing in an organisation are well cut-out. It starts with the ‘Budgeting’ exercise. The year’s sales and the prices at which the products are to be sold are to be forecast. Based on this, the targets will be given out to the sales teams. Other divisions get into the exercise and based on their inputs, on purchase prices and manufacturing costs, the product costs are estimated. The financial figures are firmed up, including the cash flow etc. Similarly the long-term prospects are worked out for immediate, three, five and seven years.

Here are the four Ps of marketing
Marketing has to look at the broader picture of its business by keeping track and monitoring the four Ps: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place. How is the product faring with the competition? Do the product specifications need an upgrade? Is the price good enough? Is it time to bring in a new product, a newer model? (as one sees in the cell phones handsets market) In the long-term it is the function of marketing to evolve a strategic process to keep the company ahead. Planning, implementation and control are the main frame-work of this process.  The tools to be used are the  three WHATs (as noted by Berkowitz, Kerin, Hartley and Rudelius in their book Marketing.) Along with the top management team, the marketing team has to ask:

• What might we do?
• What do we do best?
• What must be done?

An example in the Indian context is the metamorphosis of the readymade garments industry. Raymond has had a very good range of products for many years. But the application of the strategic marketing process upgraded the whole range of its products and blossomed as a brand called “The Park Avenue”. The rest, as they say, is history.

What are the challenges for a marketing professional?
There are quite a few challenges that will be thrown at the marketing professionals. Most importantly, continual improvement is expected of them. A marketing professional’s job has no ‘comfort level’ situation. When things go well, the credit goes to the entire management but when the sales are down, it is the marketing professionals who take the biggest share of the stick. Be sure, some managements do carry a big stick!

What kind of careers can one expect in marketing?
According to Phillip Kotler in the new markets of today, marketing people are involved in ten types of entities: Goods, Services, Events, Places, Properties, Organisations, Information, Ideas, Persons and Experiences.

Most marketing people would start through the selling route and then move on. This is the learning curve. Nothing teaches you better about your products, the logistics, the distribution chain, your customers and dealers as well as the perception of your ‘product’, and the company itself in their eyes than the process of actually selling your product. This initial legwork is what will help you in moulding the product and services, as you grow into larger roles in management in your senior years.

The next step upwards leads one to a ‘Sales manager’ for a sector, and then being the  ‘Regional Sales Manager’. After this, the transformation into marketing functions begins where one gets involved in costing and pricing of the products. The top posts here would be Regional Marketing Manager, then Marketing Manager, General Manager Marketing. But, remember, designations are
not sacrosanct and vary with organisations.

Who needs marketing professionals the most?
While the demand for Marketing Professionals continues from the regular recruiters like the FMCGs, Steel, and Chemical companies, the opportunities from the newer business models are rapidly increasing. These are the IT industries who are looking for Marketing Management plus IT graduates to market their hardware and software and the BPOs who need professionals to help them market their   ‘seats’. Then the entertainment industry is another one, which is now looking at professionals to increase their revenue in a very cluttered media space. But it will be Retail that will be the next big recruiter for marketing professionals.  The various upcoming Malls will have to be very competitive in attracting brand names and the bigger chains will have to emulate the Wal-Mart model and come out with innovative ideas like the famous Wal-Mart slogan “Each Day Lower Price!” to market themselves as well their products.

So, if you have those traits and are looking for challenges, thrills and let’s not forget the glamour, then a career in marketing is an exciting option.

The writer is a chemical engineer who has worked in the technical services and in the marketing. He writes on a wide range of subjects.