Category: Management Notes

A career may be defined as ‘a sequence of jobs that constitute what a person does for a living’.

According to Schermerborn, Hunt, and Osborn, ‘Career planning is a process of systematically matching career goals and individual capabilities with opportunities for their fulfillment’.

Career planning is the process of enhancing an employee’s future value. A career plan is an individual’s choice of occupation, organization and career path.

Career planning encourages individuals to explore and gather information, which enables them to syn­thesize, gain competencies, make decisions, set goals and take action. It is a crucial phase of human resource development that helps the employees in making strategy for work-life balance.

Features of Career Planning and Career Development

• It is an ongoing process.
• It helps individuals develop skills required to fulfill different career roles.
• It strengthens work-related activities in the organization.
• It defines life, career, abilities, and interests of the employees.
• It can also give professional directions, as they relate to career goals.

Objectives of Career Planning and Development

The major objectives of career planning are as follows:

• To identify positive characteristics of the employees.
• To develop awareness about each employee’s uniqueness.
• To respect feelings of other employees.
• To attract talented employees to the organization.
• To train employees towards team-building skills.
• To create healthy ways of dealing with conflicts, emotions, and stress.

Benefits of career planning and development

• Career planning ensures a constant supply of promotable employees.
• It helps in improving the loyalty of employees.
• Career planning encourages an employee’s growth and development.
• It discourages the negative attitude of superiors who are interested in suppressing the growth of the subordinates.
• It ensures that senior management knows about the calibre and capacity of the employees who can move upwards.
• It can always create a team of employees prepared enough to meet any contingency.
• Career planning reduces labour turnover.
• Every organization prepares succession planning towards which career planning is the first step.

Organizational Initiatives in Career Planning and Development

1. Job Posting System

It is an organized process that allows employees to apply for open positions within the organization. They can respond to announcements and postings and then be considered along with the external candidates.

2. Mentoring Activities

Mentoring systems can clarify the ambiguous expectations of the organisation, provide objective assessment of the strengths and weakness of the employees and provide a sounding board for participants.

3. Career Resource Centers

The center offers self directed, self paced learning and provides resources without creating dependence on the organization

4. Managers as Career Counselors

Managers can make realistic appraisals of organizational opportunities. They can use information from the past performance evaluation to make realistic suggestions concerning career planning.

5. Career development workshop

It is designed to encourage employees to take responsibilities for their careers.

6. Human Resource Planning and forecasting

From the analysis and needs, priorities can be determined and human resource can be allocated to satisfy the existing future needs through career management.

7. Performance Appraisal

It is a tool for HRD which can be used to guide and direct future growth opportunities for employees. This aids in the development of an employee’s career as well as enhance communications and understanding.

8. Career Path

It is a sequencing of work experiences, usually different job assignments, in order to provide employees with the opportunity to participate in many aspects of a professional area. For e.g. in order for a salesperson to move up the ladder to regional manager, it is important that the employee understands all aspects of the job.

Individual Initiatives in Career Planning and Development

1. Career Planning

An individual employee should be mature enough to plan his/her career in a systematic way looking at the current performance and future interests.

2. Career Awareness

It is the responsibility of an employee to keep himself updated about the latest development happening in the specific area of his work. This is possible through taking membership from the related bodies, subscribing to relevant magazines, attending seminars and conferences.

3. Career Resource Center Utilization

It is one of the way that an employee can plan and develop the career. This center guides and counsels in the right direction helping to take unbiased decisions.

4. Interests Values and Competency Analysis

Awareness about the individual area of interest and analysis of current level of competency helps an employee to understand better with regards to his potential career path.

5. Internal mobility of employees

Job rotation, promotion, transfer to different department can help an employee to gain better career exposure which will enhance the growth prospect in the organization.

Steps in Career Planning and Development Process

Step 1: Self Assessment

Knowing about the strengths and weakness about own helps an employee to check the various areas of exploring the career.

Step 2: Career Skills Assessment

Based on the individual strength, right fit for the right career is possible to sustain in the job for lifetime.

Step 3: Setting the career objective

The career skills assessment leads to set the desired career objective.

Step 4: Career Development Plan

Depending on the career objective the development plan is structured and further broken to sub division of plans

Step 5: Implement the plan

The clearer the development plan is, the easier it is for the employee to implement the same since the goal becomes clearer which helps to achieve the plan.

Step 6: Looking for Continuous growth

After achieving every step, review is a must based on which further growth in the career path is made possible.

The potential appraisal is made up of two words viz. potential and appraisal. Potential means the abilities of an employee which are required for meeting the challenges of future assignments while appraisal means the evaluation of that abilities in present status of an employee.

Thus, potential appraisal is the process of evaluation of the abilities of an employees that uses by employee in the future assignments. It is different from performance appraisal and needs to be carried out at regular intervals.

The potential appraisal refers to the appraisal involving identification of the hidden talents and skills of a person. The person might or might not be aware of them.

Potential appraisal is a future-oriented appraisal whose main objective is to identify and evaluate the potential of the employees to assume higher positions and responsibilities in the organizational hierarchy. Many organizations consider and use potential appraisal as a part of the performance appraisal processes.

The Potential for Improving Performance, or PIP, measures the performance of the average worker versus the best person performing a particular task. Large differences suggest that performance can be improved by bringing average performance up closer to the best performance. Small differences suggest little potential for improvement.

Potential appraisal refers to the identification of hidden skills, talents and abilities in a person which even he may be unaware of. It is a future oriented concept and is a powerful tool for employee advancement. The latent skills of a person are tracked and his true potential is evaluated.

An employee with high potential is a good candidate for assuming more responsibilities in future. In western countries, many organizations use potential appraisal as a part of performance appraisal process. However, in India, not many managers are aware of this term though informally every organization makes potential assessments.

Potential appraising is different from appraising performance. Poten­tial refers to abilities of an employee which are currently not brought to use by an organization. Potential means the talent capacity to under­take higher challenges on job in future.

Example of Potential appraisal

A good salesman need not be a good manager in the sales function since the job of a sales manager requires managerial qualities apart from selling skills.

Potential appraisal aims at identifying and assessing the capabilities of an individual to perform higher level of functions or responsibilities. It forms the basis for decisions associated with the promotions and succession planning.

In potential appraisal, attributes like velocity (speed and direction in which the employee is progressing), people and customer (listening skills, interpersonal relationship) orientation, focus on results, initiative etc. are assessed.

Objectives of potential appraisal:

• Identify the abilities of an employee in order to evaluate whether that employee is suitable for future assignments or otherwise, and
• Occupy higher positions in the organizational hierarchy and undertake higher responsibilities because past performance may not be a good indicator for future and higher role.
• Inform employees about their future roles;
• Make suitable corrections in training efforts from time to time;
• Inform employees about they must do something for their career prospects;
• Help organization for suitable succession plan;
• Improve quality and quantity of performance of an employee; and
• Give proper feedback to the employees for their potential.

Features of Potential appraisal

Potential appraisal forms an important part of HRM in finding out the hidden talents of employees.

The following are the features of potential appraisal:

• Helps assess the employees’ capacities, which pave way for them to give their best performance
• Helps assess an organization’s ability to develop future managers
• Helps assess the employees’ analytical power, which indicates the ability to analyze problems and examine them critically
• Helps build creative imagination, which is the ability of presenting an existing thing in an unconventional and new manner
• Helps analyze the sense of reality, which refers to an employee’s way of interpreting a situation
• Helps develop leadership skills, which refer to the abilities to direct, control, and harmonize with people.

Four Main Mechanisms of Potential appraisal

Potential appraisal presupposes the existence of clear-cut ‘job or role descriptions’ and ‘job or role specifications’, i.e., qualities needed to perform the role.

The mechanisms that could be used for potential appraisal are discussed below:

1. Rating by Superior

The potential of a candidate could be rated by the immediate supervisor who is acquainted with the candidate’s work and also his technical capabilities.

2. Psychological Tests

Managerial and behavioural dimensions can be measured through a battery of psychological tests.

3. Games

Simulation games and exercises (assessment centre, business games, in-basked, role play, etc.) could be used to uncover the potential of the candidate.

4. Performance Records

Performance records and ratings of the candidate on his previous jobs could be examined carefully on various dimensions such as initiative, creativity, risk-taking ability, etc., which might play a key role in discharging his duties in a new job.

Merit Rating is also known as performance appraisal or performance evaluation. It is a systematic process for measuring the performance of the employees in terms of job requirements.

It utilizes various rating techniques for comparing individual employees in a work group in terms of personal qualities or deficiencies and the requirements of their respective jobs. It is an established fact that people differ in their abilities and aptitudes. These differences are natural to a great extent and cannot be eliminated even by providing same training and education facilities to them.

There will be some differences in the quality and quantity of work done by different workers even on the same job. Therefore it is essential for the management to know these differentials so that employees having better abilities may be rewarded and the wrong selection and placement maybe restricted or avoided.

Concepts and Definitions of Merit Rating

According to Scot and Spriegel

“Merit-rating of an employee is the process of evaluating the employee’s performance on the job in terms of the requirements of the job”. It is a technique of assessing the worth of an employee with reference to job requirements.

According to Dale Yodder

“Refers to all formal procedures used in working organizations to evaluate personalities and contribution and potential of group members”. In the words of Yodder all types of methods used in evaluating the worth of employees for the organization are termed as performance appraisal.

In views of Alford and Beaty

“Employees rating is the evaluation or appraisal or the relative worth to the company of a man’s services on his job”. According to his definition the contribution of employees on jobs and their usefulness to the company is assessed under performance appraisal.

Thus according to the above mentioned definitions merit-rating or performance appraisal is a systematic evaluation of employees contribution to the organization in performance of their jobs. This evaluation is normally done by the immediate superior in the organization which is reviewed in turn by his superior. Not only the qualities, but deficiencies are also taken into consideration to improve the performance of employees.

Objectives of Merit Rating

People differ in abilities and aptitudes. Management should know these differences so that employees are assigned jobs according to their capability.

Main objectives of merit rating are as follows:

• To assess the work of employees in relation to their job requirements.
• To consider employees/workers for promotions, transfer, layoffs etc.
• To assess the good and bad points in working of employees and then making suggestions for improvement.
• To help in wage and salary administrations and taking decisions about incentives and increments to be given to the workers.
• To evaluate skill and training capabilities of employees and helping in planning suitable training and development programmes for workers.
• To know the problems faced by workers while doing various jobs.
• To provide a basis for comparison to segregate efficient and inefficient workers.
• To help management in placement/transfer to workers according to their capacity, interest, aptitude and qualifications.
• To help supervisors to know their subordinates more closely for increasing their efficiency and improving productivity.

Process of Merit Rating

Merit rating should be done on the basis of certain standards fixed in advance. The workers should also be in the know of the yardsticks to be used for evaluating them. Unless a proper process is used for evaluation, it will not give good results.

Following process is used for merit rating:

(i) Establishing Standards

The employees/workers will have to be rated against the standards set for their performance. There should be some base on which one may categorize that the performance of a person is good, average, bad etc.

The standards may be in terms of quantity and quality of production in case of workers; personality traits like leadership, initiative, imagination in case of executives, files cleared in case of office staff, etc. These standards will help in setting yardsticks for evaluating performance of the people concerned.

(ii) Communicating Standards to Workers

The standards set for performance should be communicated to the employees. They should know what is expected from them. When the standards are made known to employees, they will try to achieve their performance equal or above them.

Even later on they will not resent adverse reports if they fail to achieve certain standards. It is essential to get feedback from employees whether they have followed the standards as is desired by the management.

(iii) Measuring Actual Performance

The next step in evaluation process is to measure actual performance of employees. The performance may be measured through personal observation, statistical reports, oral reports, written reports, received from the executives concerned.

(iv) Comparing Actual with Standards

The actual performance is compared to the standards set earlier for finding out the standing of workers. The employee is evaluated and judged by his potential for growth and advancement. Deviations in performance are also recorded at this stage.

(v) Discussing Reports with Workers

The assessment reports are periodically discussed with concerned employees/workers. The weak points, good points and difficulties are indicated for helping employees to improve their performance.

The information received by employees influences their performance. It also effects their attitude and work in future. It may be easy to convey good reports but it requires tact to discuss adverse reports with the concerned employees.

(vi) Taking Corrective Action

Evaluation process will be useful only when corrective action is taken on the basis of reports. One corrective action may be in the form of advice, counselling, warning etc. Other action may be in the form of additional training, refresher courses, delegation of more authority, special assignments, coaching etc. These actions will be useful in helping employees to improve their future performance

Importance of Merit Rating

It is an established fact that people differ in their abilities and attitudes. The evaluation of their performance is the most important tool of an organization. This helps in assigning of work according to ability and capacity, spotting people for higher responsibility jobs, and recognising training and development requirements.

Following points brings out the importance of merit rating:

1. It is a managerial technique to find out the worth/capacity of various workers.
2. It helps in correct placement of workers.
3. Evaluation reports help employees to know their good points and weaknesses. The superiors also counsel their subordinates in improving their performance.
4. It provides a scientific basis for employee’s selection, training, promotion, demotion and any other action required.
5. It provides a basis for fixing wages and salaries and also helps in deciding about pay increases and incentive schemes for work force.
6. Merit rating can be used as basis of sound personnel policy in relation to transfer, promotion of workers.
7. It helps in eliminating personal prejudices and human bias against workers for any reasons.
8. It helps in removing grievances and develops a sense of confidence amongst workers because they will be sure of impartial evaluation process.
9. The workers will be more concerned in improving their performance and it will create more discipline among the employees.
10. It aims at providing data to superiors with which they may judge future job assignments and compensation required.
11. It helps in improving employer-employee relations through mutual confidence which is a result of frank discussions between a supervisor and his workmen.

Advantages of Merit Rating

The following are the advantages of Merit Rating:

1. It provides a scientific basis for judging the capability of employees who will try to improve their performance if it is not up to their satisfaction. Hence it helps in making comparisons.
2. It provides a sound basis for the purpose of promotion, demotion, transfer or termination of employees. Better persons are selected for promotion. The systematic evaluation remains as a part of permanent record.
3. It helps in distinguishing efficient and inefficient workers. In this way it reveals the defects in the selection procedure if any. Those employees who are misfit may be spotted and appropriate action initiated against them.
4. Workers may be given increase in pay or incentives if their performance is good. It helps the management in avoiding spot judgements and replacing it by advance decisions.
5. It develops confidence among the workers since the methods of evaluation are systematic and impartial. Among the workers, a sense of competition develops resulting into increased output hence improved productivity.
6. It creates a congenial atmosphere in which employer-employee relations are improved. Subordinates are motivated to work harder for getting favourable rating.
7. Merit rating is helpful in stimulating and guiding the development of an employee as it points out the weakness of the employees. In this way training requirements can be known and training programme can be accordingly decided.
8. It is a systematic evaluation technique which produces better supervisors and executives. On the basis of merit-rating report, the top management can judge the ability of executives writing such reports.

However, formal merit rating may not take place in case of a small unit where the informal rating can provide all the desired information. In case of a large scale concern, or big industries both employer and employee will be benefited from a systematic performance appraisal.

Limitations of Merit Rating

The various methods of merit rating are subject to the following limitations:

1. There is a tendency to rate employee on the basis of one factor only. It is also known as ‘blending tendency’. If the rater finds that the man is good in one field he will rate him good in all other concerned fields.
2. Each rater may apply his own standards with the result the final ratings simply cannot be compared. For example, a rater may think that ‘satisfactory’ rating is better than ‘excellent’. So clarity in standards is missing.
3. Lenient raters give; high ratings where as strict raters always give low ratings. Hence there is a big difference of ratings between two raters. It is another limitation of merit rating.
4. Generally the raters evaluate employee by keeping them in the average category though some may be falling in the extreme ends of the scale i.e. excellent or worst. So this central tendency is another drawback of this technique.
5. Usually there is a tendency to give high rating to a person who is doing the higher paid job. Merit rating has nothing to do with the job so it is its limitation.
6. Even if a person tries to be fairest rater in performance evaluation, he cannot eliminate bias because of differing perceptions.

Certain unconscious factors such as race, caste, creed, etc. may affect merit rating. If a manager who is less qualified, rates his subordinate who is more qualified, evaluation in such cases may not be fair. The limitations of merit rating explained above can be minimized to some extent by educating and training the raters..

Motivation

Motivation is the word derived from the word ’motive’ which means needs, desires, wants or drives within the individuals. It is the process of stimulating people to actions to accomplish the goals. In the work goal context the psychological factors stimulating the people’s behaviour can be:

• Desire for money
• Success
• Recognition
• Job-satisfaction
• Team work, etc..

One of the most important functions of management is to create willingness amongst the employees to perform in the best of their abilities. Therefore the role of a leader is to arouse interest in performance of employees in their jobs. The process of motivation consists of three stages:-

• A felt need or drive
• A stimulus in which needs have to be aroused
• When needs are satisfied, the satisfaction or accomplishment of goals.

Therefore, we can say that motivation is a psychological phenomenon which means needs and wants of the individuals have to be tackled by framing an incentive plan.

Morale

Morale can be defined as the total satisfaction derived by an individual from his job, his work-group, his superior, the organization he works for and the environment. It generally relates to the feeling of individual’s comfort, happiness and satisfaction.

According to Davis, “Morale is a mental condition of groups and individuals which determines their attitude.”

In short, morale is a fusion of employees’ attitudes, behaviours, manifestation of views and opinions – all taken together in their work scenarios, exhibiting the employees’ feelings towards work, working terms and relation with their employers. Morale includes employees’ attitudes on and specific reaction to their job.

There are two states of morale:

(i) High morale: High morale implies determination at work an essential in achievement of management objectives. High morale results in:

• A keen teamwork on part of the employees
• Organizational Commitment and a sense of belongingness in the employees mind
• Immediate conflict identification and resolution
• Healthy and safe work environment
• Effective communication in the organization
• Increase in productivity
• Greater motivation

(ii) Low morale: Low morale has following features:

• Greater grievances and conflicts in organization
• High rate of employee absenteeism and turnover
• Dissatisfaction with the superiors and employers
• Poor working conditions
• Employees frustration
• Decrease in productivity
• Lack of motivation

Though motivation and morale are closely related concepts, they are different in following ways:

While motivation is an internal-psychological drive of an individual which urges him to behave in a specific manner, morale is more of a group scenario.

Higher motivation often leads to higher morale of employees, but high morale does not essentially result in greatly motivated employees as to have a positive attitude towards all factors of work situation may not essentially force the employees to work more efficiently.

While motivation is an individual concept, morale is a group concept. Thus, motivation takes into consideration the individual differences among the employees, and morale of the employees can be increased by taking those factors into consideration which influence group scenario or total work settings.

Motivation acquires primary concern in every organization, while morale is a secondary phenomenon because high motivation essentially leads to higher productivity while high morale may not necessarily lead to higher productivity.

Things tied to morale are usually things that are just part of the work environment, and things tied to motivation are tied to the performance of the individual.

Difference between Motivation and Morale

Edwin Flippo (1961) defined morale as ‘a mental condition or attitude of individuals and groups which determines their willingness to cooperate’. Yoder Dale (1972), on the other hand, explained morale as ‘the overall tone, climate, or atmosphere of work perhaps regularly sensed by the members.

If workers appear to feel enthusiastic and optimistic about group activities, if they have a sense of mission about their jobs, and if they are friendly with each other, they are described as having a good or high morale. If they seem to be dissatisfied, irritated, cranky, critical, restless, and pessimistic, they are described as having poor or low morale.’ Elton Mayo defined it as ‘the maintenance of cooperative living’, which means a sense of belongingness.

On the other hand many authors defined morale as a ‘pursuit of a common purpose’, attitude, individual and group job satisfaction, participative attitudes, team sprit etc. Whatever may be the way of defining, it is evident that morale is a cognitive concept, encompassing feelings, attitudes, and sentiments, which together contribute to a general feeling of satisfaction in the workplace.

Like morale, motivation is also a cognitive concept, but it is different from morale on certain important aspects. Motivation stimulates individuals into action to achieve desired goals. It is, therefore, a function of needs and drives. It mobilizes energy, which enhances the potential for morale. Morale on the other hand is the individual or group attitude towards a particular subject. It contributes to a general feeling of satisfaction at the work place.

It is, therefore, the function of freedom or restraint towards some goal. It mobilizes sentiments, which form an important part of the organizational climate. Attitudes and sentiments, that is, morale, per se, affect productivity. High morale is an index of good human relations, which, inter alia, reduces labour turnover, absenteeism, indiscipline, grievances, etc.

Factors which affect morale are, primarily, attitude and job satisfaction levels of individual employees. From an organizational point of view, such factors can be delineated into organizational goals, leadership styles, co-workers’ attitude, nature of work, work environment, and the employee himself.

High morale is conventionally considered as a contributor to high productivity, but such correlation may not always be true. This is because high productivity may be the outcome of many other organizational initiatives, which may be independent of employee morale. Hence, even with low employee morale, high productivity is achievable. This can be illustrated using the model of Keith Davis, as in Figure 1.

Brand names and trademarks are valuable assets to a business. Often a brand or trademark becomes synonymous with the product. For example, Xerox (R) is often used to mean copy. Because of this, many companies want to protect their brands from others who may try to copy or misrepresent the name.

Brand Name

A brand name identifies a specific product or name of a company. When a brand name is doing its job, it evokes positive images or emotions in consumers, which is why brand can be so valuable. And in some cases, the brand name becomes part of the everyday vernacular such as Kleenex (R) to mean tissue. Because of a brand name’s importance, many companies want to protect it through trademark.

Trademark

A trademark is a registered brand or trade name. It can include any combination of a name, slogan, logo, sounds or colors that identify the company or its products or services. For example, the Nike Swoosh is a registered trademark.

The Goals of Brand Names and Trademarks

The goal of a brand name is to provide an easy way to recognize and remember the name that evokes a positive response in consumers. For example, many shoppers prefer to buy “brand name” products as opposed to the generic kind because of their perceived value.

A trademark provides legal protection of the brand name. Through registration, the company is able to seek legal action against others who copy or use the brand without permission.

Eligibility for Use

Brand names that are not registered could be used by others without permission. Any limitations would be at the state and city level where the business is registered.

Trademarked names however can not be used except in “fair use” in which the name can be used as long as long as ownership of the name isn’t confused. Providing examples of Xerox (R) and Kleenex (R) in this article is an instance of fair use.

Brand names can be registered as trade names at the local and state levels. Businesses structured as corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies register with their state. Submitting a doing-business-as statement with your county or city gives notice to your local area about your business name.

Trademarks are obtained from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Registering your brand name requires submitting a sample of the brand name, an application and fee. The process is long and because of the legal implications, the use of an intellectual property lawyer is recommended.

Length of Use

There are no time limitations to the use of a brand name, except any restrictions that may be regulated at the local level. For example, if your business and brand name are the same and you don’t keep your business registered with the state or renew your license, the name will be available to someone else.

Trademark protection is limited to 10 years. It can be renewed between the fifth and sixth year following registration and within the year before the end of every 10-year period by filing an Affidavit of Use. At the end of the sixth or 10th year, there is a six-month grace period in which the trademark registration can be maintained for an additional fee.

Importance of marketing can be studied as follows

(1) Marketing Helps in Transfer, Exchange and Movement of Goods

Marketing is very helpful in transfer, exchange and movement of goods. Goods and services are made available to customers through various intermediaries’ viz., wholesalers and retailers etc. Marketing is helpful to both producers and consumers.

To the former, it tells about the specific needs and preferences of consumers and to the latter about the products that manufacturers can offer. According to Prof. Haney Hansen “Marketing involves the design of the products acceptable to the consumers and the conduct of those activities which facilitate the transfer of ownership between seller and buyer.”

(2) Marketing is Helpful in Raising and Maintaining the Standard of Living of the Community

Marketing is above all the giving of a standard of living to the community. Paul Mazur states, “Marketing is the delivery of standard of living”. Professor Malcolm McNair has further added that “Marketing is the creation and delivery of standard of living to the society”.

By making available the uninterrupted supply of goods and services to consumers at a reasonable price, marketing has played an important role in raising and maintaining living standards of the community. Community comprises of three classes of people i.e., rich, middle and poor. Everything which is used by these different classes of people is supplied by marketing.

In the modern times, with the emergence of latest marketing techniques even the poorer sections of society have attained a reasonable level of living standard. This is basically due to large scale production and lesser prices of commodities and services. Marketing has infact, revolutionised and modernized the living standard of people in modern times.

(3) Marketing Creates Employment

Marketing is complex mechanism involving many people in one form or the other. The major marketing functions are buying, selling, financing, transport, warehousing, risk bearing and standardization, etc. In each such function different activities are performed by a large number of individuals and bodies.

Thus, marketing gives employment to many people. It is estimated that about 40% of total population is directly or indirectly dependent upon marketing. In the modern era of large scale production and industrialisation, role of marketing has widened.

This enlarged role of marketing has created many employment opportunities for people. Converse, Huegy and Mitchell have rightly pointed out that “In order to have continuous production, there must be continuous marketing, only then employment can be sustained and high level of business activity can be continued”.

(4) Marketing as a Source of Income and Revenue

The performance of marketing function is all important, because it is the only way through which the concern could generate revenue or income and bring in profits. Buskirk has pointed out that, “Any activity connected with obtaining income is a marketing action. It is all too easy for the accountant, engineer, etc., to operate under the broad assumption that the Company will realise many dollars in total sales volume.

However, someone must actually go into the market place and obtain dollars from society in order to sustain the activities of the company, because without these funds the organization will perish.”

Marketing does provide many opportunities to earn profits in the process of buying and selling the goods, by creating time, place and possession utilities. This income and profit are reinvested in the concern, thereby earning more profits in future. Marketing should be given the greatest importance, since the very survival of the firm depends on the effectiveness of the marketing function.

(5) Marketing Acts as a Basis for Making Decisions

A businessman is confronted with many problems in the form of what, how, when, how much and for whom to produce? In the past problems was less on account of local markets. There was a direct link between producer and consumer.

In modern times marketing has become a very complex and tedious task. Marketing has emerged as new specialized activity along with production.

As a result, producers are depending largely on the mechanism of marketing, to decide what to produce and sell. With the help of marketing techniques a producer can regulate his production accordingly.

(6) Marketing Acts as a Source of New Ideas

The concept of marketing is a dynamic concept. It has changed altogether with the passage of time. Such changes have far reaching effects on production and distribution. With the rapid change in tastes and preference of people, marketing has to come up with the same.

Marketing as an instrument of measurement, gives scope for understanding this new demand pattern and thereby produce and make available the goods accordingly.

(7) Marketing Is Helpful In Development of an Economy

Adam Smith has remarked that “nothing happens in our country until somebody sells something”. Marketing is the kingpin that sets the economy revolving. The marketing organization, more scientifically organized, makes the economy strong and stable, the lesser the stress on the marketing function, the weaker will be the economy.

Marketing refers to activities undertaken by a company to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. Some marketing is done by affiliates on behalf of a company.

Marketing as a discipline involves all the actions a company undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. Networking with potential or past clients is part of the work too, including writing thank you emails, playing golf with a prospective client, returning calls and emails quickly, and meeting with clients for coffee or a meal.

Marketing is the process of converting prospective buyers into actual customers by communicating complete information of the product or services to the customer. The key elements which are the secret to a successful marketing practice are thorough market survey and research, framing a competitive strategy, designing a realistic marketing plan and implementing different tactics to execute the plan.

Marketing is an ongoing practice to capture customer’s attention towards a product or service. It is the core of all the business practices, without which any business will prove to be a colossal failure.

Nature of Marketing

Marketing is a complex function and does not sum up to sales alone.

To develop a better understanding of the marketing practices, let us know about its nature:

• Managerial Function: Marketing is all about successfully managing the product, place, price and promotion of business to generate revenue.
• Human Activity: It satisfies the never-ending needs and desires of human beings.
• Economic Function: The crucial second marketing objective is to earn a profit.
• Both Art and Science: Creating demand of the product among consumers is an art and understanding human behaviour, and psychology is a science.
• Customer Centric: Marketing strategies are framed with the motive of customer acquisition.
• Consumer Oriented: It practices market research and surveys to know about consumer’s taste and expectations.
• Goal Oriented: It aims at accomplishing the seller’s profitability goals and buyer’s purchasing goals.
• Interactive Activity: Marketing is all about exchanging ideas and information among buyers and sellers.
• Dynamic Process: Marketing practice keeps on changing from time to time to improve its effectiveness.
• Creates Utility: It establishes utility to the consumer through four different means; form (kind of product or service), time (whenever needed), place (availability) and possession (ownership).

Scope of Marketing

1. Study of Consumer Wants and Needs

Goods are produced to satisfy consumer wants. Therefore study is done to identify consumer needs and wants. These needs and wants motivates consumer to purchase.

2. Study of Consumer behaviour

Marketers performs study of consumer behaviour. Analysis of buyer behaviour helps marketer in market segmentation and targeting.

3. Production planning and development

Product planning and development starts with the generation of product idea and ends with the product development and commercialization. Product planning includes everything from branding and packaging to product line expansion and contraction.

4. Pricing Policies

Marketer has to determine pricing policies for their products. Pricing policies differs form product to product. It depends on the level of competition, product life cycle, marketing goals and objectives, etc.

5. Distribution

Study of distribution channel is important in marketing. For maximum sales and profit goods are required to be distributed to the maximum consumers at minimum cost.

6. Promotion

Promotion includes personal selling, sales promotion, and advertising. Right promotion mix is crucial in accomplishment of marketing goals.

7. Consumer Satisfaction

The product or service offered must satisfy consumer. Consumer satisfaction is the major objective of marketing.

8. Marketing Control

Marketing audit is done to control the marketing activities.