TASK 1

1.1 Explain the various elements of the marketing process

Marketing is referred to be a procedure that involves both administrative as well as social activities needed to be undertaken by all type of companies, despite of their nature and type. This is basically to fulfil the identified needs of the users that also have a vital requirement of interacting with others (Abril and Rodriguez-Cánovas, 2016). Marketing in today’s modernised businesses not only depicts a mere exchange of goods and services but also specifies a vital role of communication among the service users and the providers. It thus involves the practice of creating procedures to communicate with one another, deliver and exchange assistances that are valuable for the customers as well as other concerned bodies, known as stakeholders.

This includes the clients, business partners as well as the society. The current marketing era has begun with the acceptance of marketing concept by the society. Marketing function was commenced with a motive of satisfying the determined needs and demands of the consumers as a way of gratifying them. In accordance to this concept, it is important for Falmouth University to understand the exact requirement of their patrons to accordingly design their work practices and policies, etc. It will assist them to effectively deliver their wants in a desired manner by together combating the state of competition in the market. This will in turn enhance the welfare of both the society as well as the patrons of the cited firm.

However, the marketing concept together consists of certain limited aspects with a foremost difficulty in determining the exact needs and requirements of the customers in the market. This is though due to a complex behaviour of humans (Boonpradub, 2015). Moreover, satisfied customers are not evident to show a considerable growth of the quoted entity where a strategic approach is often known to stress upon the ascertained demands of a specifically targeted segment of customers. This in turn impacts upon the other divisions of the market in a negative manner. This section is to identify some vital elements of marketing with a detailed explanation below-

• Situational analysis- This is referred to be a fundamental aspect of creating a successful marketing plan. This involves evaluating the current state of the organisation with assistance of SWOT analysis to assess its internal state. Also, assessing the external factors will be required to ascertain the upcoming risks or prospects. Lastly, there exists a competitor’s analysis to assess the competitive position of both Falmouth University and its other well-known contenders in the market.
• Developing a marketing strategy- This involves crafting strategies in accordance to the above carried exploration (Byrd-Bredbenner, 2017). It is usually being done by adopting the practices of SMART objectives to clearly determine the agenda and communicate other concerned bodies about the same where it should be attained within a specified period of time.
• Designing marketing tactics- This involves the application of marketing mix to frame clear strategies as a way of focussing upon the exact requirements to accomplish the set organisational goals and objectives.
• Implementation and control- This being the last step involves the application of the above intended tactics and evaluate its efficiency in terms of controlling, if not perceived to meet out the intended aims of Falmouth University (Balasescu, 2015).

1.2 Evaluate the benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for a selected organisation

Marketing orientation is meant for the reaction of a business in agreement to the identified needs and demands of the customers and the way in which, those are being satisfied by Falmouth University. Due to a high level of competition in the market, it gets important for the enterprise to strongly maintain its position in the market. This in turn necessitates the establishment to offer the products and services in the best possible quality. The concept of marketing orientation is stated to be one of the most common alignment that is utilised to combat the rising marketing related issues (Dagevos, 2016). It is with another prime focus on inclining and ascertaining the factual wants of the consumers to further design accordant strategies. This is for instance on demonstrating the existence of market orientation in context to Falmouth University, it is important for them to clearly identify the current undertaken courses that are designed for the students and their significance. Further, it must be with a specific concern of determining the need of any other relevant courses that are required to be involved in the syllabus to meet out the changing aspirations of the students. The process of marketing orientation consists of total 5 vital components, as discussed below-

• Production- This states about the integration of the resources to design a quality and affordable product or service for the users.
• Product- It can be either tangible or intangible with a prime moto of meeting the demands of the consumers.
• Selling- This will involve the efforts made by the marketing or selling team of Falmouth University to promote their services and sell them to earn profits (Brar, Kumar, Patil and Gade, 2018).
• Marketing- It indicates the procedure of selling via advertising and promotion, etc.
• Social responsibility- This refers to an ethical framework defining the obligations of the society to act towards their benefits.

There together exists some set of benefits and limitations of marketing orientation, as elaborated below-

• Benefits-
  • Building customer value- This refers to the foremost benefit of market orientation that helps in enhancing the sense of loyalty in customers who are getting services in accordance to their identified needs.
  • Responding to the demands- It is yet another effective approach to enlarge the base of customers by fulfilling their demands (Curtis, Lundholm and McVay, 2014). It together assists the companies to design new set of products and services with some invention to meet out any modified requirements of the customers in the market.
  • Costs-
    • Widespread investigation leading to costly research- This is a major limitation of the company where they are required to carry out an extensive research to explore the market. This leads to increase the requirement of funds with more number of expenses to carry out such exploration.
    • Increasing value leading to rising cost- It is mainly in context to an increased cost of production where this in turn diminishes the profitability aspect of the entities (Elenkov, 2014).

TASK 2

2.1 Explaining the concept of micro and macro factors which influence marketing decisions.

This is the main and essential concept of business environment or in sense of marketing essentials. This helps to enhance the effective value making ideas which creates new surroundings of business activities (Serrat, 2017). Besides, these all macro or micro factors also influence the business functions as well and sometimes things are get to wrong and ineffective. Micro factors are those factors that are present in internal environment of the company such as customers, suppliers, governmental and employees. This micro concept explains the factors which affect from internal. Macro factors refers to the external environment which gives new learnings and adverse effect of business activities. Some of the macro factors are includes Political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental.

Micro factors

Customers/clients: clients are the most distinct factor that affect directly to the business activities this enhance the better opportunity or loss level performance of the company (Huang, Y. T. and Rundle-Thiele, 2015). Falmouth university requires to accomplish their customers needs and wants in according to their profit margin levels.

Employees: it is another micro factor which affect marketing decisions. They might be enhancing or reduce the effectiveness of marketing activities. Company always needs to adopt best approachable employees for their organizations.

Government: legal regulations or code of conduct moreover, it is the long-term process or target market growth in terms of making good things. Company should always adopt and make aware about true regulations related to education sector in order to fulfill the best target goals (Fine, 2017).

Competition: rival firms are another major factor which affect company marketing activities. Company should need to adopt best approachable marketing tools to compete with their rival firms.

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