Business studies progress questions page 82
1. Marketing is the process by which a firm tries to identify, anticipate and satisfy customers’ needs and wants and meet its own objectives at the same time.
2. A marketing objective is the target or targets set for the marketing function.
3. An example of a marketing objective for BP could be to boost the sales of petrol by 10 per cent by February 2014.
4. One benefit of a marketing objective is the fact that it may motivate staff. This is because staff will have a common goal to strive for, if there was no objective, it may seem to some staff that they were working towards nothing. A second advantage is the fact that a marketing objective can be used as a measurement tool for the degree to which the marketing department has succeeded or failed.
5. External factors can be macro or micro. The macro-environment refers to factors that are way beyond a firms control such as political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. Whereas the micro-environment refers to the factors in the immediate environment of a business such as its suppliers, customers, substitutes and competitors.
6. Operations, human resources, finance, IT.
7. An internal factor is a factor that a business can control. One internal influence on a marketing objective is finance. The finance department will make it obvious whether a marketing objective is affordable and the budget that the marketing department has. Another internal factor is human resources. The number of staff and the skillset of those staff will determine the marketing objective. For example, if the marketing objective was to increase the sales of a product by a certain amount, if the staff cannot make the right amount then the marketing objective will not be achieved.
8. External factors can be macro or micro. The macro-environment refers to factors that are way beyond a firms control such as