Introduction To Marketing
Executive Summary
The report has based on all the marketing functions of Unilever. The organisation is a British global customer goods organisation. The organisation has offered a wide range of quality products in the global market. In the year, 1929 the organisation was introduced by William Lever. According to research, it has also been noticed that organisations have 149,000 employees. Further, in the year 2021, the organisation has made a profit of £52.444 billion from the market.
Introduction
This report will discuss the marketing function, which is very important for business development. Management is the process that sets company goals and control marketing aspects. Marketing management builds a profitable relationship between organisation employees and customers, which is beneficial for organisation growth. Marketing management will discuss briefly in this report to increase marketing value for the organisation.
- Management Structure and Business Functions
1.1. Organisational Structure and Management
The aspect of organisational structure is referred to as the formal structure that is carried by the organisation to accomplish all its set objectives(insperity, 2021). Further, among the overall organisational structure, the management is one among them that holds a significant position within the competitive environment, and they help in managing the work within the organisation.
Management Theories
The management of various businesses implements different theories that help in accomplishing all the objectives within the competitive sphere. Further, some of the important theories related to the management are explained below:
Contingency Management Theory: This theory allows Unilever to enhance the work process and ensure a smooth workflow within the overall organisation. Apart from that, it helps in managing the employees by setting up the different traits for the leaders. The trait varies depending upon the organisational needs (Dionne, 2019).
Systems Management Theory: This theory concentrates upon the communication within the overall organisation that helps in managing all the work within the competitive environment. This particular theory ensures that no miscommunications take place within the workplace.
Different organisational structures and their benefits and drawbacks
Various organisational structures are present that help the business organisation to accomplish their individual goals. Further, some of the important organisational structures include tall and flat organisational structures. The difference between these two are explained below:
| Structure | Definition | Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Tall Organisational Structure: | The activities in this type of organisational structure are divided based on the employees’ designation. | The confusion is much less in this type of organisational structure, which helps in enhancing the productivity level. | The time-consuming nature of this particular approach makes it quite difficult to be implemented within an organisational context. |
| Flat organisational structure | This type of organisational structure delegates the responsibilities only to the lower-level employees. | The decision-making process is much faster in this type of organisational structure, and that is not in the case of other organisational structures. | This structure falsely assumes the same productivity from the employees daily, and that makes it quite impossible for the employees to execute it. |
1.2 Business Function
The business functions are described as the activities that are undertaken by the business organisation to accomplish all the work within the competitive sphere. Further, these functions help the business organisation to achieve the desired goals(BMI, 2020). The different business functions essential for a business to run smoothly are explained below:
Operations: The activities related to the production of goods and services are known as the operational function, and that is one of the core functions of the organisation.
Human Resource: The human resources of a business take care of the employees who are associated with the business organisation.
Marketing: The marketing department is the one that helps in creating awareness about the products and services that are being offered by the business.
Accounting and Finance: The money management task is accomplished by this function of the business based on which the growth and the profit margins of the organisation are also calculated(oracle, 2020).
2. Management Functions
2.1. The different management functions and their responsibilities
Without imposing authority, managers control and direct operations in their organisation. To achieve larger goals, manager completes the work with the help of their team, which increase the marketing value of the organisation. The manager has the responsibility to guide the staff and employees of the organisation in the proper way (Bashkirova and Lessovaia, 2019). Management helps to evaluate trends and interpret the historical data, which develops the marketing strategies of the organisation. The management functions of the organisation are explained easily by management experts with relevant skills, which helps managers to become an accomplished managers. There are different management functions like planning, organizing, leading, controlling, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting, by which the marketing value of an organisation increases. Management guides their employees to maintain and allocate the organisational goals. Management has some responsibilities in the organisation to maintain marketing value.
- Different procedures and policies are maintained adequately with the help of management.
- The duties of employees are set properly with the help of management.
- The manager is the leader of the organisation who guides the employees to do productive work.
- Management helps to build a productive relationship between customers and employees.
2.2. Explanation of the management function
Different management function helps to manage the success of the business.
Planning
Planning is a very important function as it sets an organisational goal with all consecutive steps. Planning help management to deal with future action and achieve pre determined goal. Management can take the decision about organisational work, when to do it, what to do and how to do it with the help of planning (Wittenzellner and Teske, 2018). With the help of systematic thinking and planning, the predetermined goals of the organisation are accomplished properly. Panning helps management to avoid risks, confusion, wastages and uncertainties of organisational work. Managers can understand the environmental condition of an organisation which help them to make a good decision for the future condition of employees.
Organising
Organising is the process to bring human resources and finances together to develop a productive relationship which is very effective for organisational goals achievement. The organising process help management to assign tasks with the help of the abilities and skills of different employees. Activities of employees are identified and classified in groups properly with the help of the organising process. The manager assigns duties to employees and divides their responsibilities through the organising process.
3. Marketing Functions
The business function of marketing is an important activity that helps the business organisation to create awareness about the products in the mind of the consumers. Further, this function is also required to work in coordination with other functions that can help in enhancing the overall value. Further, how the marketing function should cooperate with other functions has been described below:
Source: (Johnson et al., 2019)
Promotion and Distribution:
The promotional activities help in reaching a wide range of consumers and enhancing the positive brand image. For example, Unilever makes effective use of the online promotional strategy that helps in targeting its consumers and converting sales. However, to do so, they require an effective budget based on which these activities can be carried out. Hence, this requires the help of the finance department.
Research and Development:
Market research is an important requirement for the organisation that helps in gaining in-depth knowledge about consumer requirements and ensuring that the organisation can manage the overall work. To carry out the research, organisations need the help of skilled employees. The human resource department is responsible for doing so, and in this way, the individuals are related to the human resource department (Tien et al., 2019).
Planning and Designing:
The marketing activities require an effective plan based on which the goods and products are manufactured. Further, the operations are the ones who make the effective plan related to the products. Hence, it is the sole responsibility of the operations to make an effective plan, and the marketing department works based on the plan. This helps in making the work easier and ensuring that the overall work can be accomplished within the given time. Apart from that, the marketing function has to depend upon the operations for the plan to move ahead (Johnson et al., 2019).
4 Talent and organisational culture
4.1 The role of HR in talent management
Some critical day to day and specific activities are done by HR to develop integrated designs, approaches and management policies for talent management. HR makes business strategies with gathered data to manage the marketing organisation (Garcia-Perez et al., 2019).
Recruiting
Right people are hired with the help of HR of talent management to define job descriptions and manage workflow carefully.
Organisational strategy
HR helps to create a proper organisational strategy to recruit employees to support workforce development which helps to reach the organisational goal.
Leadership development
High potential individuals and high performance of employees have been located with the help of HR to consider the best way in marketing management over the long-term (Federici et al., 2021).
4.2Organisational culture and its impact of it on the success of an organisation
The organisational culture mainly describes the appropriate ways to behave in the organisation. Along with this, it also includes the values created by management and shared beliefs. With a positive workplace culture, the management can easily improve the productivity and teamwork of the organisation. Along with this, it will also help the management of Unilever to reduce the work pressure on the employees(BUTER, 2021). A proper organisational culture can easily improve the job satisfaction of the employees as the organisation also provides a conducive work atmosphere in which the employees can perform in a better manner. Further, it will also help the management of Unilever to achieve its desired goal.
Conclusion
This particular report has highlighted various kinds of management structures and business functions. Along with this, all the responsibilities of the management function have also been described in the report. The role of marketing and the way in which it works for the success of the organisation. Further, the report has discussed the role of human resource management and ways through which a positive organisational culture impacts the success of Unilever.
References
Books and Journals
Dionne, G., (2019). Corporate risk management: Theories and applications.
Tien, N.H., Phu, P.P. and Chi, D.T.P., (2019). The role of international marketing in international business strategy. International Journal of Research in Marketing Management and Sales, 1(2), pp.134-138.
Johnson, D.S., Muzellec, L., Sihi, D. and Zahay, D., (2019). The marketing organization’s journey to becoming data-driven. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.
Bashkirova, N.N. and Lessovaia, S.N., (2019), June. Waste Management as Functional Part of the Social Responsibilities of Business. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 272, No. 2, p. 022042). IOP Publishing.
Wittenzellner, H. and Teske, A., (2018), March. Modeling Business Communication Management and Crossmedia Planning for Different Target Groups. In Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference (Vol. 45).
Garcia-Perez, A., Cegarra-Navarro, J.G., Bedford, D., Thomas, M. and Wakabayashi, S., (2019). Implications for Human Resource Management Roles and Responsibilities. In Critical Capabilities and Competencies for Knowledge Organizations. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Federici, E., Boon, C. and Den Hartog, D.N., (2021). The moderating role of HR practices on the career adaptability–job crafting relationship: a study among employee–manager dyads. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(6), pp.1339-1367.