INTRODUCTION

Marketing is one of the key functions of management. It brings success to business organizations. A business organization performs two key functions :

(a) producing goods and services, and

(b) making them available to the potential customers for use.

An organization's business success largely depends on how efficiently the products and services are delivered to the customers, and how differently do the customers perceive the difference in delivery in comparison to the competitors.

Meaning of Marketing Management

Marketing is a process in a social system by which the demand pattern for product and services can be anticipated, enlarged, created and satisfied through the conception, production, promotion and physical distribution of goods and services in an exchange process.

According to Philip Kotler "marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others. Marketing is an ongoing process of discovering and translating consumer needs and desires in to products and services, creating demands for these products and services, serving the consumer and his demand through a network of marketing channels and expanding the market base in the face of competition ".

Marketing has a process orientation also. Based on the above, we can develop n process-oriented definition of marketing, as "the process of ascertaining consumer needs, converting them into products or services, and moving the product or service to the .final consumer or user to satisfy certain needs and wants of specific consumer segment or segments with emphasis on profitability, ensuring the optimum use of the resources available to the organization.

MARKETING MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHIES

There are five different marketing concepts under which business enterprises conduct their marketing activity:

1) Production concept

2) Product concept

3) Selling concept

 4) Marketing concept

 5) Societal concept

Production concepts

The Production Concept emerges out of the production orientation. The basic proposition is that customers will choose products and services that are widely available and are of low cost. So managers try to achieve higher volume with low cost and intensive distribution strategy. The managers believe that consumers prefer products that are priced low and are widely available. This seems a viable strategy in a developing market where market expansion is the survival strategy for the business. Companies interested to take the benefit of scale economies pursue this kind of orientation. It is natural that the companies cannot deliver quality products and suffer from problems arising out of impersonal behavior with the customers.

Selling Concept

The Selling Concept proposes that customers, be individual or organizations will not buy enough of the organization’s products unless they are persuaded to do so through selling effort. So organizations should undertake selling and promotion of their products for marketing success. The consumers typically are inert and they need to be goaded for buying by converting their inert need in to a buying innovative through

Marketing Concept

 The Marketing Concept proposes that the reason for success lies in the company's ability to create, deliver and communicate better value proposition through its marketing offer in comparison to the competitors for its chosen target market. According to Theodore Levitt "Selling focuses on the needs of the seller and marketing focuses on the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller's need to convert his product in to cash, marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with persuasion and selling action. This approach is applicable in the cases of unsought goods like life insurance, vacuum cleaner, fire fighting equipments including fire extinguishers. These industries are seen having a strong network of sales force. creating, delivering and finally consuming it".

Marketing culture should be adopted by other departments of the enterprise also. While external marketing targets customers outside, internal marketing targets customers inside the organizations  who can be trained to serve the customer better. The ultimate goal of any business house is to earn profit.

Societal Concept

The Societal Concept proposes that the enterprise's task is to determine the needs, wants and intentions of the target market and to deliver the expected satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than the competitors in a way to preserve or enhance the consume and society's well being. It combines the best elements of marketing to bring social change in an integrated planning and action framework with the utilization of communication technology and marketing techniques. It also looks for marketers to build social and ethical considerations into the marketing practices. The goals of profit maximization should match with the goals of customer satisfaction and responsible corporate citizenship. Social marketing often termed as cause related marketing utilizes concepts of market segmentation, consumer research. product concept development and testing, communication to maximize the target adopters response.

Excessive exploitation of resources, environmental deterioration and the customer movements in particular have necessitated the recognition of the relevance of marketing to 1lie society. Marketing then must be a socially responsible or accountable activity. The societal concept holds that the business organization must take into account the needs and wants of tile consumer and deliver the goods and services efficiently so as to enhance consumer's satisfaction as well as the society's well being. The societal concept is an extension of the marketing concept to cover the society in addition to the consumer.

SELLING Vs MARKETING

Difference in Selling and Marketing

1. Marketing is about customer satisfaction. It starts with customer needs and demand and ends with customer satisfaction. It is a customer oriented approach. Sales, on the other hand, is about selling what the company produces. It doesn’t care about the need of the customer but about the profits.
2. Marketing is about providing quality products and consumer satisfaction. Selling is about generating by maximising sales and is a money oriented approach.
3. In marketing, emphasis is given on the wants of the consumer. Whereas in selling, emphasis is on the company’s products.
4. Marketing is different from selling because here the company first determines customers’ needs and wants and then decides how to deliver a product to satisfy these wants. In selling, it is the other way round.
5. In marketing the emphasis is on innovation in existing technology and providing better value to the customer by adopting a superior technology. Selling emphasizes on staying with existing technology and reducing costs.
6. Marketing views the customer as the very purpose of the business. Selling views customer as a last link in business.
7. Planning in marketing is long-term-oriented in today’s products and in terms of new products, tomorrow’s markets and future growth. Planning in selling is short-term-oriented in terms of today’s products and markets.
8. Marketing follows customer oriented approach and selling uses production oriented approach.
9. Consumer determines price and price determines cost of marketing. In selling, cost determines price.
10. Marketing makes use of long-term strategies to get sales – examples, value-added service, customer education, meeting objectives. Selling makes use of short-term tactics to get sales – examples are free gifts, discounts, rebates, bribes, etc.
11.  Marketing is an indirect activity whereas sales is a direct activity.