Q.1. Discuss the different marketing concepts with its merits and drawbacks
Ans: Marketing is a set of business activities that facilitate movement of goods and services from producer to consumer. It is an ongoing process of discovering and translating consumer needs into products and services, creating demands for them, serving the customer and his demand through a marketing programme of promotion and distribution to fulfill the company’s marketing goals in a competitive environment.
It is evident that customer, his needs and wants are very important aspects of today’s marketing.
Customer focus is the very essence of marketing and his viewpoints should be taken into account while making marketing decisions.
In this era of rapid changes, it is marketing which keeps the business in close contact with its economic, political, social and technological environment and informs it of events and changes that can influence its activities.
American Marketing Association (AMA) offers the following definition of Marketing.( AMA 2004)
Definition: Marketing is an organization function and a set of process for creating, communications and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stake holders.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines Marketing as:
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements, profitably.
Having understood what a Market is and what is Marketing, we will now look what is an exchange and the exchange process.
The Exchange Process
Today’s marketing system has evolved from the time of a simple barter of goods through the stage of a money economy to today’s complex marketing. Throughout all these stages, exchanges have been taking place. In small town and villages there were artisans such as carpenters, weavers, potters blacksmiths, barbers and others such service providers