Marketing Management Assignment: Marketing Research On Business Scenarios

Question

Task:
Purpose:
This individual marketing management assignment is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding of marketing management.

Details
Answer All FIVE (5) of the following questions.

Question 1 Week 3: Tutorial 2
The firm's success depends not only on how well each department performs its work, but also on how well the various departmental activities are coordinated to conduct core business processes. List and briefly describe in 300 words the four core business processes. Use an example for each process to illustrate your discussion.

Question 2 Week 4: Tutorial 3
Explain what is qualitative research and why it might be useful to marketers. What are its major drawbacks? Answer this question in 300 words

Question 3 Week 5: Tutorial 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oUqt-WbFkY

“Consumers have become part-time marketers”. Use the information from the video and discuss to this statement in 300 words.

• The discussion must contain the information from video
• You must support your discussion by referring to 3 additional academic sources from ProQuest (ensure that you reference them correctly)

Question 4 Week 5: Tutorial 4
The family is the most important consumer buying organization in society, and family members constitute the most influential primary reference group. Name two family categorizations and discuss the impact of each of the categories on buying behavior. Answer this question in 300 words

Question 5 Week 6: Tutorial 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF9r9LrOb70

Watch the video and answer all 3 questions in a total of 300 words.

1. How can Tesla implement a marketing campaign with limited budget?
2. Who is the target customer of Tesla?
3. What is the future of Tesla?

Answer

Marketing Management Assignment Answer 1
The main processes performed in an organisation can be defined as follows:

Product Development
It is a fundamental process that enables the organisation with a great opportunity to maximize the value to the customers and helps in growing. There are a number of challenges are faced in the product life cycle like changes in the market, change in customers' interest, poor product designing, new competitors, off vase pricing and lack of the post launching research and services (Swami and Shankar, 2018). For example, at the time of development of a new food product, the coordination from marketing and research team is required to get the customer’s opinion and thus to integrate the same in the development process.

Sales Process
Sales is an important function or process which helps the organisation to deliver its products and services to the end-user. To perform this function, there is a need for coordination with the marketing team. In addition to this, good relations with the retailers and wholesalers are also required to be maintained. A sales process contains a lot of sub-processes which are especially important to close a deal. These steps include order processing checklist, sales presentation template, closing the sale checklist, and sales to service handoff process. For example, in a large retail outlet, all process street templates can easily be integrated with the CRM software to automatically pass data forth and back, collaborating with the team members and improving the sales productivity (Page and Tarp, 2017).

Procurement
Procurement includes more than purchasing. It includes making a selection of the vendors, establishment of payment terms, negotiation, and strategic vetting. For example, a well-documented procurement process can enhance the ability to identify and evaluate opportunities on a continuous basis which needs coordination from the operations and finance departments.

Customer Support
This is one of the most important and considerable processes in the present scenario. To provide timely customer support, it is required to get updated information from the sales and marketing team (Gong, et al., 2017). For example, to provide immediate information about the products delivery status by online shopping websites, it is important to get timely support from the sales and courier department.

Answer 2
Qualitative marketing research includes an observational and natural examination of the philosophies governing and affecting consumer behaviour. This framework and direction of the market research us often revised as new data and information are collected. It also allows the researcher to identify and measure subjects and issues in-depth manner (Maison, 2018). The quality of the research results largely depends on the skills of the researcher and processes followed to collect market information.

It helps the marketers to collected detailed, descriptive, and insightful data instead of predictive and statistical data. It also helps in revealing the perceptions, behaviours, and feelings that derive the customers to make a particular decision. This is done by developing a rapport with the participants and by asking open-ended questions to them, which may influence then to share their experiences, and stories with the respective organisation and its competitors in the target market. The most important methods used in this research includes in-depth interviews and focus groups. These methods help in gaining realistic views of how clients or customers would react to a particular product (Hackley, 2019). This method also helps the customers develop on each other's ideas and comments.

The main drawbacks faced by marketers while conducting qualitative marketing research can be defined as follows:

• There can be issues related to anonymity and confidentiality at the time of presenting the findings.
• If there is a lack of communication and analysing skills in the researcher, it may impact the accuracy and reliability of data collected.
• The accuracy of the information depends upon the sample size. Small sample results in less accurate results and vice versa.
• The marketers need to invest a lot of time and effort in this research which may lead to loss of the emerging opportunities in the target market (Hall, 2019).

Answer 3
In the present revolutionary world, the customers are becoming smart and they are well-aware about all marketing trends followed by the small, medium, and large level organisations. There is an increase in the trend of advertisements through social media fan pages and fan clubs. The organisation was facing an increase in their sales due to such trends. But at present, most of the customers do not prefer to follow such pages as a high amount of advertisements creased issues to connect with their family members and friends (Choudhary, et al., 2019). Instead of following pages, the customers are willing to share information with their online friends and relatives. Thus, customers are working as marketers for the brand providing online services. The increased use of mobile technology is also helpful for customers to gain more and more information. There are a number of payment applications are widely used by the customers at the global level to make small and some large payments in specific cases (Chmielewski, 2019). The customers are getting smarter day by day and thus, it has been clearly indicated in the video that mobile phones are working as the external brain of customers. These brains store a lot of information and data and help the customers at the time of making the final decision related to purchasing. Thus, it is becoming hard for the marketing team to influence customers by using simple advertisements like television (Loijens, 2017). The information and smartness among customers are expected to be increased up to a great extent in 2020. The main reason behind such development includes technological changes and the increased needs of the customers due to the change in lifestyle and their preferences.

Answer 4
The individual family members serve different types of roles in making decisions drawn by common family resources. Some such individuals are information holders/gathers who try to seek out the information related to the relevance of products and services (Ahmad and Khan, 2017). The main categories that can affect the purchasing decision of customers can be defined as follows:

Dynamics of Husband-wife Decision Making
A spousal sense of fairness acts as an important mechanism for contemporary couples to harmonise issues over time in making family decisions. Spouses consider the perception of their partners at the time of taking action to restore fairness. The previous studies are indicating that husbands are more influential at the time of selecting lawyers and insurance agents while wives at the time of selecting pharmacists (Hillebregt, et al., 2019). However, some joint decisions are also made while selecting the home décor, traveling, and healthcare professionals.

Dynamics of Children in decision making
Children also influence the purchasing behaviour of individuals. An individual does not spend on candies, toys, chocolates, and ice-creams to a great extent but when he/she has children at home. He would like to purchase for them. The increasing needs of children influence their parents to invest in some extra activities like cartoon network, Disney channel and so on. In the present scenario, a huge sum is spent on the educational facilities of children. It influences the parents to adjust their other needs which ultimately leads to having a great impact on their purchasing decisions. There are mainly five stages of children affecting their parent's behaviour. At the first stage, a child only demands for the observation trips. At the second stage, a child asks for purchasing by pointing out the things. This is also known as the nag factor or pester power. At, the third stage, a child starts asking for shopping trips (Srnec, et al., 2016). In the fourth stage, children ask to go for the individual shopping and at last full independence in the fifth stage takes place.

Answer 5

• The amount spent by organisation on social media advertising is almost nil in comparison to its main competitors including Ford, BMW, Porsche, Honda, and Audi. Further, it can develop and implement an effective marketing campaign by posting its main activities like on the social media pages. The organisation is continuously involved in making use of renewable energy in its manufacturing processes. To advertise the new models and advances in current models, the CEO of Tesla remains active on his twitter account and post every new achievement of the organisation to inform customers (Zhang and wang, 2019). This is a low-cost marketing strategy for Tesla. Thus, it would be beneficial to inform all such activities and the new innovations to the customers to keep them informed and take interest in the organisation’s products and services.
• The main customers targeted by Tesla includes people from the age of 20-40 years living mainly in three categories named as eco-friendly, technology-oriented, and luxury buyers of entry-level. The products of Tesla are considered expensive in nature and thus, these are not easy to be purchased and affordable for the average customers. The organisation also makes use of an anticipatory positioning type in the target market to segment its customers. There are very few electric car manufacturers in the world and Tesla is one of the. Thus, its customer segment is highly dependent on its high pricing strategy.
• Tesla is a well-developed car manufacturer and thus its importance cannot be reduced until the role of cars gets a change in society. It is planning to increase the level of innovation and technology in its new models by the end of 2020. Tesla can remain a leader in the global automobile market for the next 5 years . However, to do the same, there is a need for international expansion and diversification in the other potential automobile market (Kozlovskyi, et al., 2018). It is easily able to attract the environment-conscious customers along with those, who are seeking advanced technology.

References
Ahmad, A. and Khan, M.N., 2017. Factors influencing consumers’ attitudes toward social media marketing. MIS Review, 22(1/2), pp.21-40. Available at: http://misreview.mis.nccu.edu.tw/pdf/volume/2212/2212-02-full.pdf

Chmielewski, M., 2019. Do Marketers Use Online Targeting Advertising to Shape Consumer Perception? (Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York). Available at: http://elearning2.unyp.cz/pluginfile.php/58141/mod_data/content/4844/Chmielewski%2C%20Maciej_513092_Final%20Project%20Thesis.pdf.

Choudhary, U., Jhamb, P. and Sharma, S., 2019. Perception of Consumers towards Social Media Practices Used by Marketers for Creating Brand Loyalty. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal. Available at: https://www.abacademies.org/articles/perception-of-consumers-towards-social-media-practices-used-by-marketers-for-creating-brand-loyalty-7871.html

Gong, D., Tang, M., Liu, S. and Li, Q., 2017. Reconsidering production coordination: A principal-agent theory-based analysis. Advances in Production Engineering & Management, 12(1). Available at: http://apem-journal.org/Archives/2017/APEM12-1_051-061.pdf

Hackley, C., 2019. Qualitative Research in Marketing and Management: Doing Interpretive Research Projects. Routledge. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7x3CDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=qualitative+marketing+research&ots=ic5y1xswmo& sig=KcCo3zOmtIyI_5t6hDTAutqbWAU

Hall, H., 2019. An Application of Qualitative Marketing Studies in the Identification of the Consumer Decision-Making Process. Effects and Benefits. Humanities and Social Sciences, 24(26 (4)), pp.61-69. Available at: https://oficyna.prz.edu.pl/download/ZpL28_DzpMVCUgajItdn0qFnYrKk9SanV4clZmKXxwYFZnbTQH, GsMWoiGiMiC3EObiUPKCQqZjhpNxBXPTwlPgM8dSYqIRd4N3pOfzxUMk4/hss-4-2019-20-01.pdf#page=61

Hillebregt, C.F., Scholten, E.W., Post, M.W., Visser-Meily, J.M. and Ketelaar, M., 2019. Family group decision-making interventions in adult healthcare and welfare: a systematic literature review of its key elements and effectiveness. BMJ open, 9(4), p.e026768. Available at: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/4/e026768?utm_term=1-B&utm_content=americas&utm_campaign=alljjs&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=trendmd

Kozlovskyi, S., Shaulska, L., Butyrskyi, A., Burkina, N. and Popovskyi, Y., 2018. The marketing strategy for making optimal managerial decisions by means of smart analytics. Innovative Marketing, 14(4), pp.1-18. Available at: https://businessperspectives.org/images/pdf/applications/publishing/templates/article/assets/ 11280/IM_2018_04_Kozlovskyi.pdf

Loijens, L.W. ed., 2017. Augmented reality for food marketers and consumers. Marketing management assignment Wageningen Academic Publishers. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ihPTDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=consumers+as+marketers&ots=g9X8RHF81G& sig=C1b2GCzF5ySvCe7NqpH9NV2MOwI

Maison, D., 2018. Qualitative Marketing Research: Understanding Consumer Behaviour. Routledge. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TGNwDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT12&dq=qualitative+marketing+research&ots=wAwKq VEsfa&sig=FBqgXGQS11_fo_PInx9HLkl9dW0

Page, J. and Tarp, F. eds., 2017. The Practice of Industrial Policy: Government—Business Coordination in Africa and East Asia. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3diPDgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=coordination+in+business+departments&ots=7Rq3ldQ4AD&sig=-W7y0OGyToEzyqfXqeOfGctBA0w

Srnec, T., Lon?ari?, D. and Prodan, M.P., 2016. Family vacation decision making process: evidence from Croatia. In 23. bijenalni me?unarodni znanstveno-stru?ni kongres" Turizam i hotelska industrija 2016: trendovi i izazovi". Available at: https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/827475.Srnec_Loncaric_PerisicProdan.pdf

Swami, S. and Shankar, R., 2018. Inter departmental Dyadic Coordination with Reference to Human Resource and Operations Management Current Status and Strategic Approaches. Available at: https://shodhgangotri.inflibnet.ac.in/jspui/bitstream/123456789/5699/1/synopsis.pdf

Zhang, J. and Wang, R., 2019. Research on the Marketing Strategy of New Energy Vehicles in SL Company. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 9(2), pp.306-314. Available at: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=90659