73. Marketing Management

Marketing management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities. Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand accepted definition of the term. In part, this is because the role of a marketing manager can vary significantly based on a business' size, corporate culture, and industry context. For example, in a large consumer products company, the marketing manager may act as the overall general manager of his or her assigned product. Our starting point for learning about marketing is to begin with the basics and that starts with defining marketing.

Since marketing has been an important part of business for a long time we could consult one of the many hundreds of books written on the subject to locate a definition. Or, as is more the custom today, we could search the Internet to see how marketing is defined. Whether we search print or electronic form we will find that marketing is defined in many different ways. Some definitions focus on marketing in terms of what it means to an organization, such as being the key functional area for generating revenue, while other definitions lean more toward defining marketing in terms of its most visible tasks, such as advertising and creating new products.

There probably is no one best way to define marketing, however, whatever definition is used should have an orientation that focuses on the key to marketing success – customers. At a broader level marketing offers significant benefits to society. These benefits include: Developing products that satisfy needs, including products that enhance society’s quality of life. Creating a competitive environment that helps lower product prices. Developing product distribution systems that offer access to products to a large number of customers and many geographic regions. Building demand for products that require organizations to expand their labor force.

Offering techniques that have the ability to convey messages that change societal behavior in a positive way (e.g., anti-smoking advertising). Henri Fayol considers management consisting of five functions Planning, organizing, leading, co-ordinating and controlling. Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.