Option A, the DKM&X scenario provided in the assessment brief. DKM&X is a market leader in the manufacture of tools and equipment with 450 staff at its headquarters, selling principally to trade audiences in the United Kingdom and European Union, with a developing United States market and a limited online range for the general public. Sales are in decline, a recent survey identified high dissatisfaction with customer service, and the senior management team has set three objectives for the coming year: launch a new product or service, increase market share by at least 5 per cent, and improve customer retention by 18 per cent. The product selected for Tasks 3 and 4 is a new condition monitoring service for the company’s existing installed tool base.
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Task 1: Account on the role of marketing to support the achievement of organisational objectives
AC 1.1 Evaluate the role of marketing to support the achievement of organisational objectives
Marketing as the link between capability and market need. Evaluating the fundamental role, marketing identifies what customers value and directs the organisation towards providing it profitably. Kotler’s definition of marketing as identifying and meeting human and social needs profitably places the customer at the start of the process rather than at the end of it. Evaluating the practical consequences for DKM&X, a company whose sales are declining while it retains a reputation for quality, has a marketing problem rather than a manufacturing one.
Supporting specific objectives. Evaluating the role against each of the company’s three objectives, marketing contributes differently to each. Launching a new product or service requires marketing to establish whether a market exists before development begins, which is the difference between a product launch and an expensive experiment. Increasing market share by 5 per cent requires positioning against the smaller agile competitors identified in the scenario. Improving retention by 18 per cent is the objective marketing supports least directly, since retention is delivered through service quality rather than promotion, and the customer survey indicates that is precisely where the company is weak.
Marketing as intelligence. Evaluating a role frequently overlooked, marketing gathers the information on which other decisions rest. Kodak held the patent for the first digital camera and declined to commercialise it, protecting film revenue against a market that was moving regardless; the failure was one of market interpretation rather than technology.
Marketing as an organisation-wide orientation. Mullins (2022) places marketing among the core functions whose effectiveness rests on the organisation as a whole rather than on one department. Evaluating the broader conception, a market orientation is a characteristic of the whole organisation rather than a department’s activity. Evaluating DKM&X against this, a survey showing high service dissatisfaction indicates that the customer-facing parts of the business outside marketing are undermining what marketing promises.
Marketing in decline conditions. Evaluating the role where sales are falling, marketing’s contribution shifts from growth to diagnosis. The scenario attributes decline to cheaper entrants, competitor innovation, economic volatility and regulatory change, and these require different responses: the first is a positioning question, the second a product development question, the third a pricing and terms question, and the fourth a compliance and communication question. Evaluating why the distinction matters, an organisation that treats declining sales as a promotional problem will spend money on activity that cannot address the cause.