MARKETING FUNCTION

Functions

The term functions of marketing management means the main role of this type of management in any organization.

Major Functions of Marketing Management
We need to understand the major functions of marketing management in order to understand and groom our organization. The following are some of the major functions of marketing management −

** Selling
** Buying and Assembling
** Transportation
** Storage
** Standardization and Grading
** Financing
** Risk Taking
** Market Information

The marketing process performs certain activities as the products and services move from the producer to consumer. All these activities or jobs are not performed by every company.

Nonetheless, it is recommended that they be carried out by any company that wants its marketing systems to function successfully.

Selling
Selling is the crux of marketing. It involves convincing the prospective buyers to actually complete the purchase of an article. It includes transfer of ownership of products to the buyer.

Selling plays a very vital part in realizing the ultimate aim of earning profit. Selling is groomed by means of personal selling, advertising, publicity and sales promotion. Effectiveness and efficiency in selling determines the volume of the firm’s profits and profitability.

Buying and Assembling
It deals with what to buy, of what quality, how much from whom, when and at what price. People in business purchase to increase sales or to decrease costs. Purchasing agents are much tempted by quality, service and price. The products that the retailers buy for resale are selected as per the requirements and preferences of their customers.

Assembling means buying necessary component parts and to fit them together to make a product. ‘Assembly line’ marks a production line made up of purely assembly functions. The assembly operation includes the arrival of individual component parts at the work place and issuing of these parts for assembling.

Assembly line is an arrangement of employees and machines in which each individual has a particular job and the work is passed directly from one employee to the next until the product is complete.

Transportation
Transportation is the physical means through which products are moved from the places where they are produced to those places where they are needed for consumption. It creates locational utility.

Transportation is very important from the procurement of raw material to the delivery of finished products to the customer’s places. Transportation depends mainly on railroads, trucks, waterways, pipelines and airways.

Storage
It includes holding of products in proper, i.e., usable or saleable, condition from the time they are produced until they are required by customers in case of finished products or by the production department in case of raw materials and stores.

Storing protects the products from deterioration and helps in carrying over surplus for future consumption or usage in production.

Standardization and Grading
Standardization means setting up of certain standards or specifications for products based on the intrinsic physical qualities of any item. This may include quantity like weight and size or quality like color, shape, appearance, material, taste, sweetness etc. A standard gives rise to uniformity of products.

Grading means classification of standardized items into certain well defined classes or groups. It includes the division of products into classes made of units possessing similar features of size and quality.

Grading is very essential for raw materials; agricultural products like fruits and cereals; mining products like coal, iron and manganese and forest products like timber.

Financing
Financing involves the application of the capital to meet the financial requirements of agencies dealing with various activities of marketing. The services to ensure the credit and money needed and the costs of getting merchandise into the hands of the final user are mostly referred to as the finance function in marketing.

Financing is required for the working capital and fixed capital, which may be secured from three sources — owned capital, bank loans and advance & trade credit. In other words, different kinds of finances are short-term, medium-term, and long-term finance.

Risk Taking
Risk means loss due to some unforeseen situations. Risk bearing in marketing means the financial risk invested in the ownership of goods held for an anticipated demand, including the possible losses because of fall in prices and the losses from spoilage, depreciation, obsolescence, fire and floods or any other loss that may occur with the passage of time.

They may also be due to decay, deterioration and accidents or due to fluctuation in the prices induced by changes in supply and demand. The different risks are usually termed as place risk, time risk, physical risk, etc.

Market Information
The importance of this facilitating function of marketing has been recently marked. The only sound foundation on which marketing decisions depend is timely and correct market information.

The importance of this facilitating function of marketing has been recently marked. The only sound foundation on which marketing decisions depend is timely and correct market information.