Assignment on

Interface between Marketing and other Business functions

Submitted by Anoop Anantha - 117 12/30/2012

In any business it is essential for the various functions of the company i.e. marketing, finance, HR, production, supply chain, etc., to coordinate with other and to operate in a customer oriented way. Speaking of marketing it is essential for marketing to incorporate the short and long term goals of the firm and it is equally essential for the other functions in a firm to incorporate the marketing inputs in their operations. The role of the Marketing department is to provide the organisation with forecasts and estimates of sales volume, profitability and market potentials, as well as the limitations imposed by the company on resources and policies. This input helps the other functions in the organisation to sets their goals and schedules. Another important function of the marketing department is to collect and convey the customer voice and inputs to other departments at all times. Let us see the interdependence of marketing with the other departments.

Production and Marketing

The products have to be designed and made to satisfy customer needs. The marketing division is responsible to provide accurate, specific and timely information to the design and production departments about the nature of these needs. The requirements have to be specified in terms of sizes, colours, fabrics, flexibility, weight, standards, etc. The marketing function is also responsible for the provision of information which will form the basis of production planning. Production planning and control requires the inputs in the form of Sales forecasts and market demand. Marketing, therefore, plays a role both before and after the production effort. Situations which need proper coordination between these two departments are New product development Maintaining level and standard of production Improving production methods

Finance and Marketing

Many of the decisions that need to be taken by marketing department will need information and approval from the finance department. The most important information is the costing information of the product which will decide the pricing of the product. The marketing department also needs to give input to the finance department in terms of forecasted levels of sales, market share objectives and competitors' prices which will help them in planning for the financial needs of the organisation and will also be an input for the budget. Situations which need proper coordination between these two departments are Planning and controlling sales force activities Credits and discount policies

Human resource and Marketing

There are a number of important issues that the HR and the marketing department must work closely with in order to ensure the proper working of the organisation. These include: The recruitment process (Advertising / interviewing / offer letters etc.) When staff need to be dismissed All employment contracts and terms and conditions of employment The staff appraisals process and identifying training needs Manpower planning requirements Re-organisations Individual personal issues

Procurement and Marketing

Procurement gets its input in the form of forecast and production requirements from the Marketing department. Many firms have also been modifying of have been looking for alternate raw material sources for the same product to reduce the cost of the product and reduce the wastage. Hence, marketing department will play a part of getting the customer acceptability and their views in this regard. Procurement will also have to arrange for receiving the raw materials at the right time so that customer orders could be met on time. This will lead to better customer satisfaction and improved relations with the customers.

R&D and Marketing

Ignoring the marketing and R&D interface has led to many firms developing engineers and scientists dream and marketers nightmare since they havent taken the customers needs in to consideration. The primary function of the interface is on new product development. Each stage of the new product development process from idea generation to final product development stage requires close coordination between the two departments and will require constant inputs from the potential customers.

Relation with other departments

The other departments that the marketing department works in close coordination with are packaging, quality control, transport and distribution, purchasing, etc.

Conflict
There are always sources of conflict between departments as it is a trade-off between various parameters. Some of the conflicts that can arise btween marketing and other departments are as follows. Production - Production often stress on long production runs of standardised items, together with finite sales forecasting. On the other hand marketing, will stress the need for a greater variety of products, shorter production runs, etc.

Research and Development - R&D emphasises on a need for pure research, experimentation and greater accuracy and development time. Whereas marketing's emphasis will be on more applied research and they do not tolerate overruns on time and budget. Another source of conflict is where R&D looks to standardise the items whereas Marketing will look for customisation. Purchasing - Purchasing specialists stress on the need to choose between suppliers, to focus on price, specifications and delivery times. Whereas marketing will stress on the need for high quality, higher priced items in line with what customers are demanding. Finance - Potential conflict here is often over prices to charge and pricing methods, cost allocation, profitability targets, credit control and marketing budgets.

Conclusion
An organisation needs all the departments to function properly whereas the focus should be on customer satisfaction and not on individual department goals. In fact, all of the functions of a business need to work together to achieve customer satisfaction at a profit.