Principles of marketing

1. CHAPTER 2
COMPANY & MARKETING STRATEGY
Q1. What is strategic planning? What are the focuses of strategic
planning?
Ans. Strategic planning: The task of selecting an overall company strategy
for long run survival & growth is called strategic planning. Each company
must find the plan that makes the most sense given its specific situation,
opportunities, objectives & resources.
The process of developing & maintaining a strategic fit between the
organization’s goals & capabilities & its changing marketing opportunities is
the main focus of strategic planning. Strategic planning sets the stage for
the rest of the planning in the firm. The strategic plan involves adapting the
firm to take advantage of opportunities in its constantly changing
environment.
Q2. Explain companywide strategic planning & its 4stages.
Ans. Strategic planning sets the stages for the rest of the company’s
planning. Marketing contributes to strategic planning, & the overall plan

2. defines marketing’s role in the company. Although formal planning offers a
variety of benefits to companies, not all companies use it or use it well.
Strategic planning involves developing a strategy for long run survival &
growth. It consists of 4stages.
1. Defining company’s mission
2. Setting objectives & goals
3. Designing a business portfolio &
4. Developing functional plans
Defining a clear company mission begins with drafting a formal mission
statement, which should be market oriented, realistic, specific, motivating
& consistent with the market environment. The mission is then transmitted
into detailed supporting goals & objectives to guide the entire company.
Based on those goals & objectives, headquarters designs a business
portfolio, deciding which business or products should receive more or
fewer resources. In turn, each business & product unit must develop
detailed marketing plans in line with the company wide plan.
Q3. Discuss how to design business portfolios & develop strategies for
growth & downsizing.

3. Ans. Guided by company’s mission statement & objectives, management
plans its business portfolio or the collection of business & products that
make up the company. The firm wants to produce a business portfolio that
best fits its strength & weaknesses to opportunities in the environment. To
do this, it must analyze & adjust its current business portfolio & develop
growth & downsizing strategies for adjusting the future portfolio. The
company might use a formal portfolio-planning method. But many
companies are now designing more customerized portfolio planning
approaches that better suit their unique situations. The product expansion
grid suggests 4possible growth paths: market penetration, market
development, product development & diversifications.
Q. Mention the steps of designing the business portfolio?
ANS:There are two steps of designing the business portfolio and those are:
1. The company must analyze its current business portfolio and decide which
businesses should receive more,less,or no investment.
2. It must shape the future portfolio by developing strategies for growth and
downisizing.
Q.What is the growth share matrix? Briefly discuss about the BCG
Growth-Share Matrix.
ANS:
Growth share matrix:A portfolio-planning method that evaluates a company’s strategic business
units in terms of its market growth in terms of its market growth rate and relative market share.

4. The BCG Growth-share Matrix:The growth-share matrix defines four types of SBUs.
These are:
1.Star
2.Cash cows
3.Question mark
4.Dogs
1.Stars:Stars are high-growth,high-share business or products. They often need heavy
investments to finance their rapid growth.Eventually their growth will slow down,and they will
turn into cash cows.
2.Cash cows:Cash cows are low-growth,high-share business or products. These established and
successful SBUs need less investment to hold their market share.Thus,they produce a lot of cash
that the company uses to pay its bills and to support other SBUs that need investment.
3.Question marks:Question marks are low-share business units in high-growth markets. They
require a lot of cash to hold their share,let alone increase it.Management has to think hard
about which question marks it should try to build into stars and which should be phased out.
4.Dogs: Dogs are low-growth,low-share business and products.They may generate enough cash
to maintain themselves but do not promise to be large sources of cash.
Q.Mention one device to identify growth opportunity?
ANS:
One Useful device for identifying growth opportunities is the product/market expansion grid
shown below

5. Here X-axis 1.Existing products and 2.New product
Again Y-axis 1.Existing markets and 3.New markets
CHAPTER 2
Question no.1
Briefly discuss about the integrated marketing mix.
Marketing mix:
Marketing mix is the set of controllable tactical marketing tools- Product,
Price, Place and Promotion- that the firm blends to produce the response it
wants in the target market. It is one of the major concepts in modern
marketing.
Product:
1
Market
penetration
2
Product
development
3
Market
development
4
diversilication

6. Product means the goods and service combination the company offers to
the target market.The product has to have the right features - for example,
it must look good and work well.
Price:
Price is the amount of money customer must pay to obtain the product.The
price must be right. Consumer will need to buy in large numbers to produce
a healthy profit. The priceof an item is clearly an important determinant of
the value of the sales made.
Place:
Place includes company activities that make the product available to target
consumers. The goods must be in the right place at the right time.
Makingsure that the goods arrive when and where they arewanted- is an
important operation.
Promotion:
Promotion means activities that communicate the merits of the product
and persuade target customers to buy it.The target group needs to be
made aware of the existence and availability of the product through
promotion. Successful promotion helps a firm to spread costs over a larger
output.
Efficient Blending of 4P’s make effective integrated marketing mix.
Qestion no.2
Briefly discuss about SWOT analysis.
SWOT analysis:
A SWOT analysis (alternatively SWOT matrix) is a structured
planningmethod used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats involved in a project or in a businessventure.The
marketer should conduct a SWOT analysis, by whichit evaluates the

7. company’s overall Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) and
Threats (T).
SWOT analysis aims to identify the key internal and external factors seen as
important to achieving an objective. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of
information into two main categories:
1. Internal factors – the strengthsand weaknesses internal to the
organization
2. External factors – the opportunities and threats presented by
the environment external to the organization.
Strengths
Reputation in marketplace
Expertise at partner level in HRM
consultancy
Hard work
Creative
Intelligent
Opportunities
Well established position with a
well-defined marketplace
Identified market for consultancy
in areas other than HRM
Weakness
Threats
Question no. 3
Mention the four marketing management functions.
Shortage of consultants at
operating level rather than
partner level
lack of ability to deal with
multi-disciplinary
assignments
Inexperienced, young,
unproven
Job outlook
Peer competitor
Industry competitor
Storage of resources
Marketing Management Function:
Managing the marketing process requires the four marketing management functions-
1. Analysis
2. Planning
3. Implementation
4. Control