Bench Mark of Marketing

Marketing, as a discipline, has traveled a long distance in the last four decades. It is a craft of linking the producers of goods and services with the existing and potential customers. The changes in the consumer behavior, market place, channels of distribution, the merchandizing, display and almost anything have been tremendous in the past few decades. The speed of change is stupendous. Major shopping malls, the range of choices, the buying pattern from personal to internet buying, credit cards etc has taken long strides towards difference and has totally changed business outlook. The demand for more sophisticated products has emerged almost in every field. Products have today very close similarities. The research has created nearly the same kind of services and customer aids. Marketers are today faced with tough decisions. One wrong decision or delayed decision can completely put business back and give competitors edge over the market place, which in itself is a tough situation to face.

Today, we call it “marketing for the millennium” which is self-explanatory and challenging. Students must learn to deal with advances in technology and its impact on marketing. Website today is perhaps as important as packing.

One marketing specialist said it all
“The future isn’t ahead of us. It has already happened”.

Marketing is typically seen as the task of creating, promoting and delivering goods and services from producers to consumers.

It has been so since long and perhaps marketing sounds easy if we closely look at the situation. But only when we analyze, we learn how many changes have taken place in each sector of this creating, promoting and delivering. The markets have expanded from cities to international; the mode of transport has changed. Internet and satellite communication has made the globe shrink to almost a few seconds now. In fact all things have changed. Marketing itself has incorporated many facets. Marketing today is difficult because of awareness and exchange of information.

The Marketing task is not only to deliver the product. In fact, it entails much more than just promotion and delivery. Marketing now is:

“Right product for the Right people at the Right time at the Right place at a Right price with Right services”.

The marketing challenges are to find what is Right?. Marketing task is to stimulate demand for company’s product. Marketing task is to manage demand, just as production and logistics professional are responsible for supply management. For demand management., Marketing involves comprehensive understanding of product ( goods and services), experiences, events, the consumers, the places, information, Ideas,properties and even its own organization to be able to answer what is right, for whom, where, when and how?

Marketers are said to be Managers of Demand. They have to know much more than just their own product as it used to be.

To be able to answer questions more correctly, marketers must understand first the true import of some of these terms: