Introduction

This Contemporary Issues marketing Management Assignment will aim to discuss various contemporary issues faces by organizations in marketing management. It will discuss the role of market in business context which are contemporary, non- traditional. First of all the role of relationship marketing in contemporary business will be understood by talking about various aspects of relationship marketing. It would be illustrated by discussing the customer relationship management in one of the famous organization of UK and the recommendations would also be discussed. Next, the focus will be moved towards describing the role played by marketing in the context of non-traditional businesses. Here the perspective of the marketing would be discussed in voluntary sector and non-profit organization along with the key issues faced in the marketing in such contexts. It is well known that service sectors are entirely different from the product based sector, so the extended marketing mix used by the service sector businesses will discussed in details. The importance and the difficulties faced by service based organization by implementing extended marketing mix would be discussed in greater details. Information technology has become vital in the current business marketing environment. So, corporate social responsibility, ethical issues etc would also be discussed in this report. Overall this report will talk about all the contemporary issues in the marketing.

Task 1

Task 1.1: Knowledge Management and its role in relationship marketing

Knowledge management is the important paradigm of the organizational management. It is basically the process of acquiring, developing, discussing, sharing the organizational knowledge. It also includes using this knowledge in effective manner. It can be seen as a multidisciplinary approach which helps the organizations in achieving their objectives in more effective and efficient ways. It also includes the creation, acquisition, capture, share and use of knowledge related to the customers of organization in order to increase the learning and performance level within the organization. It aims at making the organization more intelligent that helps them in achieving overall success and realization of the best value that can be acquired from the this asset i.e. knowledge. Organizations use these acquired knowledge in various constructive fields in order to get best results from this acquired knowledge.

Task 1.2: ICT and Customer Relationship Management

Information and communication technology (ICT) has changed the way the organization used to their marketing efforts. So, almost all organizations have a dedicated customer relationship management department in order to have sustainable relations with their customer. The best example to show the support of ICT on the customer relationship management can be any bank operating in UK. Royal Bank of Scotland is the largest bank of the UK which provide all the banking and financial services to its customers. The relationship of the customer is too critical for the success of the organization. Information and communication technology helps bank to create better relations by use of innovative technologies emerging with the time. ICT supports customer relationship management is following ways:

• New emerging technologies related to the communication help the bank to track the transaction habits of the organization and helps bank to provide the convenient services to them accordingly.
• The information technology has enabled various functions related to the transactions done by the customer that help customers to perform them in easy and mobile situations.
• Relationship manager tracks the consumer behaviour using various innovative technologies to make their relations with the customers better.
• ICT has changed the way the customer service is delivered by the bank and helped the banks to increase their performance by improving their relationships with their customers.
• RBS provides the services that enable the customers to conduct all type of transactions facilitated in smooth way with proper customer support that pleases the customer.

Task 1.3: Benefits of Customer Relationship Management in RBS

Customer relationship management is the process of managing the existing and prospective customers. It has become an integral part of the organizations as it helps the organizations in getting success in better way. It includes use of various available technologies in order to organize, synchronize and automate the various functions like sales, customer service, marketing and technical support. There are various benefits that are enjoyed by the organizations by use of various CRM packages that are available from different vendors. RBS uses CRM software package internally for this purpose. They have a dedicated customer relationship department that helps the customer in delivering the business in better ways. The benefits that are enjoyed by the bank from customer relationship management are as follows:

• Satisfied and retained customers who boosts the sales of the organization and increases the revenues of the organization.
• Relationship manager aims at creating productive leadership with the clients that helps the clients in creating strong links between bank and the client’s business.
• Customer relationship management at bank provides the feedbacks of the customers about the services provided by the bank so that they can improve upon those and can maximize the success.
• It helps in better marketing of the services provided by the banks by word of mouth and this type of marketing communication is considered too important for the success of the organizations.

The above mentioned benefits are some of the important points that are attracted by the bank in implementing customer relationship management. It is evident that successful CRM is crucial for the organization, so RBS is also not the exception to it and enjoys the benefits earned from the use of customer relationship department (Kuusela, 2013).

Task 1.4: Recommendations to RBS

As discussed customer relationship management is the crucial factor for the success of the organization. RBS is the largest bank of the UK and has implemented customer relationship management system within the organization in best possible manner. With the latest innovations in the technology, it is necessary for them to upgrade their information technology related to the customer relationship department pro actively in order to provide the best possible services to its customers. Mobile has become a new weapon and the powerful tool in the hand of the customers.Customers look for all the services related to banking by use of mobile only. There is a need by the organization to look for a dedicated customer relationship package to the users who uses mobile for all their services. A better service in this aspect will help the organization in building more sustainable relationship with its customers. There is a requirement of looking forward for a dedicated CRM external package for the service improvement also. This activity will also help the bank in getting more revenues by attracting more customers (Saren, 1999).

Task 2

Task 2.1 Stakeholder Analysis for NCVO and Barnado’s

NCVO is the voluntary organization of UK which has brought all the people working for the voluntary sectors together. It aims at strengthening and developing such voluntary and civil societies operating in UK. It brings all the people together in order to solve their problems by finding the root causes and so that they inspire others as well. It was started in 1919 as a National council of Social service. There are various stakeholders of NCVO which get impacted by its activities. The stakeholder analysis of NCVO can be done in following manner:

Community: Community at large residing in UK is the main stakeholder of the organization. NCVO is delivering its best to all the people within the community.

Members: NCVO has more than 10000 members working for it. They are the medium of serving the society and large. They are working as per the defined standards and have been provided all required environment by the organization.

Staff: Another main stakeholder of NCVO is staff members of organization which has been provided with all the required facilities.

Government: Government is the important stakeholder of organization which provide all the necessary requirements of the organization to serve the citizens at large.

Barnado’sorganization aims at transforming the lives of vulnerable children of UK. They also target young people who are vulnerable to make their lives better. They are working in other countries as well. There stakeholder analysis can be done in following manner:

Children and young people: There main stakeholders are vulnerable children and young people who have hope that the organization will help them in transforming their lives. Organization is doing its best for their support.

Community: The community provides various supports to the organization so that they can make a change in the community and they are doing for that purpose.

Government: Government is another stakeholder which hopes for the better place for live to all kind of people of the country with the help of such non-profit organization. Barnados are fulfilling the hopes of government as well.

Task 2.2: Nature of relationship with customers

In order to understand the nature of relationship observed by the non-profit organizations with their customers, “ACE foundation” and “peace one day” have been selected. ACE foundation is being established to provide education and based in Cambridge. It also supports international cultural understanding. They provide various seminars, course, lectures, summer schools and study tours. Peace one day is a non-profit organization which have institutionalized the peace day which is observed worldwide on 21^st September. They perform various activities on this day in order to celebrate this annual day by giving a message to humanity.

Task 2.3 Methods of marketing in public, private and voluntary sectors

Marketing methods used by the organization differ from one sector to another and from one organization to another within a sector also. Public sector organization and private sector organization have usually similar marketing methods to attract more customers, however there is difference between voluntary and public sector organizations. The difference in the marketing strategy can be summarized in below manner:

1. Public sector organizations do not use many promotions techniques for their products or services while marketing in private sector is highly dependent on their promotions. On the other hand voluntary sector organizations use little or no promotion schemes.
2. The marketing techniques used by public sector can’t be quantified while all the marketing efforts in private sector are properly quantified by the marketing department. Voluntary organizations do not have any department like marketing department.
3. Private sector organizations have main dependence on the marketing efforts for their sales while most of the public sector organizations fulfill basic needs of people so they are not heavily dependent on marketing efforts.
4. Public sector spending on the marketing efforts is limited by various acts governed by governmental bodies while spending on marketing efforts in private sector does not have a particular limit and it is highly dependent on the marketing scenario.

Task 2.4: Key issues in the marketing in a virtual organization

Virtual organizations are the organizations which have no physical existence. It can be created by a temporary network of different companies, customers; suppliers that are linked through information technology and can share cost, skills, information or have access to each other’s market. They have aim of providing services or products of high quality at a cost which is lowest possible. The virtual organization face various issues in their marketing efforts as they don’t have any physical presence and the customers trust become a tough task for them to acquire. The customers prefer to select the products from an organization which can be trusted and they ensure their trust after searching about their headquarters or the offices. But a virtual organization doesn’t have any office, so it becomes difficult for them to get the trust of the customers for long. Let’s take an example of Wikipedia which is basically a virtual organization and which have run out of money lots of time due to unavailability of fund and was unable to convince its customer i.e. donors to donate amount for their benefits. They faced the issues of trust, physical absence and improper positioning. It becomes difficult for them to target and segment the customers in correct manner so that they can position themselves in a lucrative way. Another issue faced by virtual organization in their marketing is that they can’t allot much money for it as their financial health does not allow them to do so. So, it can be concluded that marketing in virtual organization is a biggest challenge for marketing department.

Task 3

Task 3.1 Extended marketing mix in Starbucks

Starbucks is the well known brand all over the world which delivers the unique experience to its customers through its chain of coffee houses. Starbuck which was started as a small coffee house long back in 1971, has become the largest chain of coffee and related products worldwide. It has used all the marketing principles and marketing techniques in efficient manner to provide the best services to its customers. The marketing mix plays an important role in the success of the organization. Service based organizations use extended marketing mix for attracting the customers. The use of extended marketing mix for Starbucks can be illustrated in following manner:

1. Product: Starbucks produces quality products i.e. coffee and related products that attract the customer and give them satisfaction about the delivered values as well.
2. Price: The prices of different products offered by the organization are value to the worth who understands the value of a coffee from this huge organization.
3. Place: Starbucks target such places which are according to their targeted segment of the customers to open their offices in order to attract the maximum market share from targeted segment.
4. Promotion: Starbucks is a very well known brand and keeps on providing its promotions time to time to attract more and more customers in its stores.
5. People: Employees who interact with the customer are the main people from the organization. Employees of Starbucks have all the knowledge, skills and experience required to deliver the quality service to their customers.
6. Physical Layout: It plays an important role in the service delivery. Clean facilities, strategically arranged point of sales displays in the stores, objects, logos, colors etc that convey the premium service promises to the customers.
7. Process: They have well defined over the counter activities which are being divided in two processes: drink making and order taking. They are able to use the well defined process by providing a particular procedure, technology and training the staffs (Ahmed, 1995).

Task 3.2: Use of product/service mix

Product mix and service mix play an important role in enhancing the value for customers as well as for organizations. Product mix includes product, place, price and promotion while service mix extends this product mix by adding people, process and physical layout. How product mix and service mix add values to the customer can be detailed out in following manner:

1. Product/service mix keep in mind the interests of the people to attract the more customers as it is the part of marketing efforts of the organization.
2. Organizations keep on the tap of requirements of the customers in order to keep their product/service mix according to them.
3. The product/service mix aims at providing more value to the customers to compete out their rivals in the industry.
4. Enhanced value to the customer is provided with the help of their price and promotion attributes of the product mix.
5. These marketing mixes take extra care of the customers to satisfy their needs thus create more value for the customers (Groves, 1995).

The value for the organizations provided by the service/product mix can be summarized in below manner:

1. Product/service mix help organization in attracting more customers, so increasing their market value.
2. Properly managed and aligned product/service mix helps the organization in gaining competitive advantage.
3. Product/service mix of an organization builds the basis of their core competencies.
4. Product/service mix helps the organization in adding the values to the sales amount of their balance sheet.

Task 3.3: Overcoming difficulties in the marketing of service based organization

Services provided by any organization have specific characteristics i.e. inseparability, intangibility, variability, perish ability and non transfer of ownership. The services based organization faces difficulties in their marketing efforts due to these characteristics. The difficulties faced by the organization in marketing can be illustrated with the example of Starbucks itself. Starbucks faced many problems while they started expanding their market to other countries like China. The main difficulty faced by them is to market their products in a market which is highly price sensitive. The products and services provided by the organizations were of higher price that was not a normal price for the people of china. They started analyzing the consumer behaviour using various data sources available with them. So, they started marketing of their services in the form of status symbol to the citizens of China. They were able to get success in delivering the quality service to the customer and attracting the customers. Another difficulties faced by the organization which are service based is the marketing the experience since experience enjoyed by the customers during service delivery is critical to the consumer in service based organization.So, mouth of world play an important role in the success of the service based organization. So, organization has started to advertise them by providing testimonials on their websites and stated TV commercials which show the experience shared by their consumers in order to attract more and more consumers (Chua, 2013).

Task 3.4: Role of IT in marketing of service based organization

With the evolution of technology, organizations of all type have started utilizing its power in their marketing effort in order to maximize their benefits from their market efforts. Technology plays an important role in the marketing of the products or services. It can be easily said that organizations are becoming more dependent on information technology for their success as with the evolution of internet; information technology has become most powerful tool for the organizations. Starbucks is no exception for the use of this technology in their marketing efforts. Internet has reach to almost all of their targeted consumers. They are utilizing its benefits in order to get more consumer engagement that ultimately helps the organization in providing better services to its customers. Information technology is playing an important role in the marketing management of the organization by providing various online resources to attract more consumers.

Task 4

Task 4.1: Ethical issues and social concerns to marketers

Marketers face many issues related to the ethics. Ethics has started playing an important role in the marketing and even organizations have started ethical marketing in order to address the ethical issues. There are various social concerns as well that are related to the marketing efforts of the organization. A new term “social marketing” has been coined to address these concerns as well (Brubaker, 2007). Here ethical issues and social concerns faced by the marketers of cosmetics industry would be discussed in details. Marketers in cosmetic industry face following ethical and social concerns:

1. Marketers face ethical issues in marketing research while they discuss various questions with the consumers related to various cosmetics products as some feel that questions are personal or not to be discussed in such a manner.
2. Marketers face ethical issues while targeting the audience like for most of the cosmetics product main targets are female consumers but some other community’s exclusion creates issues.
3. Various issues like children’s reach, competition, unrealistic promises are also faced by the marketers working in cosmetics industry while designing their advertising and promotion campaigns.
4. Marketers have to design their efforts while taking concerns of various social issues prevalent in the environment.
5. The products that a marketer is marketing should not be a product which is banned from the particular area.
6. The marketers should be aware about the environmental law and their efforts should not affect the environment in such a way that it impacts its sustainability.
7. The marketers need to have social concerns about the prices of their products so that the products are affordable to all income level of the consumers.

The above mentioned points have detailed out the social concerns and ethical issues of the marketers involved in the cosmetics industry (Vitell, 2001).

Task 4.2: Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is also known as corporate citizenship, social performance of the organization etc and has become the important responsibility of the organization in order to perform some functions apart from their regular business that are helpful in the betterment of the society at large. CSR policy basically performs as an inbuilt function of the organization that monitors it and ensures that the business practices are according to the compliance, ethical standards, law of nature and some international norms. It is basically seen as an activity of giving back something to the environment and communities at large. Activities of CSR performed by Starbucks will be discussed here.

• CSR is deeply rooted in the organization throughout the organization and aims at serving world’s best coffee.
• They have made commitments to the producers of coffee, their families, environment, and community at large. Starbucks is also promoting a model for worldwide high quality production of coffee which is sustainable.
• Starbucks is promoting various recycling program that helps in the conservation of natural resources and in this manner it returns to the environment.
• Starbucks take care of their neighbor, active contributors i.e. community by providing a better environment to live and providing them a healthy and enjoyable environment.
• Starbucks is serving their partners as well who makes it possible to work. They respect the people who work with them and return them in various manners that can help them in future by providing better future plans.

So, the above mentioned points are the main activities performed by Starbucks in context of the corporate social responsibility. Many economies have made it necessary for corporate to spent a minimum defined amount on this activity (Rippin, 2007).

Task 4.3: Influence of pressure group on the ethical and social marketing

It is necessary for the organizations to consider various ethical issues and social concerns in their various activities like operations, marketing etc. There are various pressure groups active on offline and online platform which have concerns about the unethical and socially unacceptable activities of the organizations and put pressure on the organization to discontinue such activity and make policies for not to repeat such activities in future. Apple, the world’s most innovative technological organization faced the issues related to the social and ethical concerns which were reported by the “Greenpeace” group. The issue was reported for their suppliers in China. This group accused Apple of providing the unhealthy and hazardous conditions in the factories where its components are assembled which was made open to all. This report depicted that the suppliers of Apple have violated commitments related to occupational health and safety, pollution and workers. It also showed that 12employees of their supplier organization Foxcon committed suicide due to the working environment provided by them. It disturbed the whole market image of the organization and they had to make various policies related to the social concerns and ethical issues. They made various policies related to marketing as well in order to improve their damaged image. However there was not much impact on the image of products on the customers but the shareholders and brand value of the organization was much impacted by this activity of the pressure group. So, it can be easily summarized that pressure groups impact the business of the organizations and organizations need to change their various policies (Sebhatu, 2008).

Task 4.4: Role of Published or Broadcast media

Published and broadcast media play an important role in influencing the ethical and social marketing policies of the organizations. The ethical and social marketing policies are defined by the organizations in order to meet various requirements related to the ethical issues and social concerns. The case which was discussed in the above section related to the Apple Inc. would be used as reference for this section. Published and broadcast media played an important role in that reported case in order to bring the truth of the large organization like apple to the whole world. All the reports related to the suicide of the employees were reported by the Chinese media which created a huge impact on the organization. Various media from China reported all related incident though their mediums of communication.

Conclusion

The report has detailed out various aspects of marketing. Relationship marketing, customer relationship management, social and ethical marketing, various issues, extended marketing mix, corporate social responsibility, role of IT in marketing, use of information and communication technology, stakeholder analysis, difficulties in marketing etc are the various topics that are being discussed in details with the perspective of different organization.This report would help the readers in understanding all the concepts related to marketing in details. This assessment helped in implementing all the learning acquired during the course in class room. This report can be used as a reference by students for further understanding of the topic. It can be concluded that various aspects of the marketing are important for the success of the organization and with the evolution of technology; IT has played an important and useful role in the success of various functions of marketing.

References

Alton Y.K Chua, Snehasish Banerjee, (2013) "Customer knowledge management via social media: the case of Starbucks", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 17 Iss: 2, pp.237 - 249 Ann Rippin, (2007) "Space, place and the colonies: re-reading the Starbucks' story", critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 3 Iss: 2, pp.136 – 149 AnusornSinghapakdi, KiranKarande, C.P. Rao, Scott J. Vitell, (2001) "How important are ethics and social responsibility? - A multinational study of marketing professionals", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35 Iss: 1/2, pp.133 – 153 Bo Enquist, Bo Edvardsson, Samuel PetrosSebhatu, (2008) "Corporate Social Responsibility for Charity or for Service Business?", Asian Journal on Quality, Vol. 9 Iss: 1, pp.55 – 67 Christine Domegan, Katie Collins, Martine Stead, Patricia McHugh, Tim Hughes, (2013) "Value co-creation in social marketing: functional or fanciful?", Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 3 Iss: 3, pp.239 – 256 Fiona Leverick, Dale Littler, Dominic Wilson, Margaret Bruce, (1997) "The role of IT in the reshaping of marketing", Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, Vol. 3 Iss: 2, pp.87 – 106

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