Marketing (Byte Size Skills Course)

Byte Size Marketing Course The concept and practice of marketing is concerned with putting the customer first. The working definition of marketing used in this course expresses this idea neatly: "The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition." We can think of marketing as a philosophy that underpins and drives the activities of an organisation. We can also regard it as a business function and process concerned with the set of activities necessary to obtain and service demand for an organisation's products.  All elements of marketing serve to determine the approach of organisations and ultimately their business performance. In this course, we provide an overview of marketing by looking at the complexity of delivering an ever-changing set of products and services within a business context that is broad, subject to economic fluctuations and volatile consumer taste and demand. More specifically, we look at the philosophy of marketing and introduce marketing planning and the business context in which organisations operate - the marketing environment. After participating in this course, you should be able to: define the marketing concept define marketing as a business orientation and as a business activity distinguish between different business orientations recognise the management issues involved in creating a market-driven organisation define what is meant by the marketing mix, and identify its key elements and the characteristics of an effective mix identify and describe the key stages in the marketing planning process identify key changes in the marketing environment, and how these may impact on marketing decisions.