Marketing: Firms, Customers & Society

Today’s marketing is all about creating customer value and building profitable long-term and mutually beneficial relationships in socially responsible ways between an organisation and the public it serves. The essence of successful marketing is to combine a detailed understanding of market needs and dynamics with appropriate product/service offerings and effective communication strategy. The job of the Marketing Manager is to achieve this match; to take responsibility for the process of understanding and matching customer needs with company competencies to produce products/services with a unique competitive positioning which are capable of yielding sustained profitability and growth. To fulfill this function requires the Marketing Manager to make key decisions about who the company wants as its customers, which needs to satisfy, what products and services to offer, what prices to set, what communications to send, and what partnerships to develop. Key skills of the Marketing Manager include market research, strategy development, planning and budgeting, new product innovation and ideas, and designing effective communications campaigns harnessing new marketing technologies. This course will focus on the major decisions that marketing executives and top management face in their efforts to harmonise the objectives and resources of the organisation with the needs and opportunities in the market place.