Пойгина Л.Б., Туринова Л.А. - English for Masters. Management Part 1 (1175658), страница 16
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The marketing vice-president constantly has toweigh the claims of competing functional specialists and faces a difficult coordinationproblem.GEOGRAPHICAL ORGANIZATION. A company selling in a national marketoften organizes its sales force and sometimes other functions, including marketing alonggeographical lines. The national sales manager may supervise four regional sales managers,who each supervise six zone managers, who in turn supervise eight district sales managers,who supervise ten salespeople.Several companies are now adding area market specialists (regional or localmarketing managers) to support the sales efforts in high-volume, distinctive markets. Onesuch market might be Miami, which has a Latino population of 56%, as compared toneighboring Fort Lauderdale, with a Latino population of only 4 percent. The local marketspecialist for Miami, for example, would know Miami's customer and trade makeup in greatdetail: help headquarters -marketing managers adjust their marketing mix for Miami; preparelocal annual and long-range plans for selling all the company's products in Miami; andhelpsell their field salespeople on the new programs.Several factors have fueled the move toward regionalization and localization.
First,the U.S. mass market for most products has slowly subdivided into a profusion of51 minimarkets, baby boomers, senior citizens, African-Americans, single mothers — the listgoes on. Today, marketers find it difficult to create a single product or program that appealsto all of these diverse groups.
Just consider these demographic figures and you can see whymarketers cannot look at the United States as one homogenous country.Second, improved information and marketing research technologies have also spurredregionalization. For example, data from retail-store scanners allow instant tracking of productsales from store to store, helping companies pinpoint local problems and opportunities thatmight call for localized marketing actions. A third important factor is the increasing power ofretailers. Scanners give retailers mountains of market information, and this information givesthem power over manufacturers. Retailers are often like to know about large, nationalmarketing campaigns aimed at masses of consumers. They strongly prefer local programstied to their own promotion efforts and aimed at consumers in their own cities andneighborhoods.
Thus, to keep retailers happy and to get shelf space for their products,manufacturers must know a lot more of their marketing budgets to local, store-by-storepromotions.PRODUCTOR BRAND-MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION. Companiesproducing a variety of products and brands often establish a product- (or brand-)management organiz a t i o n . The product-management organization does not replace thefunctional-management organization but rather serves as another layer of management. Theproduct-management organization is headed by a products manager who supervises productcategory managers, who in turn supervise specific product and brand managers.
A productmanagement organization makes sense if the company's products are quite different, or if thesheer number of products is beyond the a b i l i t y of a functional-marketing organization tohandle.Product management first appeared in the Procter &Gamble Company in 1927. Anew company soap, Camay, was not doing well, and one of the young executives, Neil H.McElroy (later president of P&G), was assigned to give his exclusive attention to developingand promoting this product.
He did it successfully, and the company soon added otherproduct managers.Since then, many firms have established product-management organizations. KraftGeneral Foods, for example, uses a product-management organization in its Post Division.There are separate product category managers in charge of cereals, pet food, andbeverages.
Within the cereal product group, there are separate product managers fornutritional cereals, children's presweetened cereals, family cereals, and miscellaneouscereals.The product manager's role is to develop product plans, implement them, monitor theresults, and take corrective action when necessary. This responsibility breaks down into sixtasks:Developing a long-range and competitive strategy for the product;Preparing an annual marketing plan and sales forecast;Working with advertising and merchandising agencies to develop copy, programs, andcampaigns;Stimulating support of the product among the sales force and distributors;Gathering continuous intelligence on the product's performance, customer and dealerattitudes, and new problems and opportunities:Initialing product improvements to meet changing market needs.These basic functions are common to both consumer- and industrial-productmanagers.
However, consumer-product managers typically manage fewer products thanindustrial-product managers. They also spend more time on advertising, sales promotion, and52 working with others in the company and various agencies. They are often younger and MBAeducated. Industrial-product managers, in contrast, spend more time with customers andlaboratory and engineering personnel, think more about the technical aspects of their productand possible design improvements, and work more closely with the sales force and keybuyers. They pay less attention to advertising, sales promotion, and promotional pricing.They emphasize rational product factors over emotional ones.The product-management organization introduces several advantages. First, theProduct manager can concentrate on developing a cost-effective marketing mix for theproduct.
Second, the product manager can react more quickly to problems in the marketplacethan a committee of functional specialists can. Third, the company's smaller brands are lessneglected, because they have a product advocate. Fourth, product management is anexcellent training ground for young executives, for it involves them in almost every area ofcompany operations.But a product-management organization is not without its disadvantages. First,product management creates some conflict and frustration. Typically, product managers arenot given enough authority to carry out their responsibilities effectively.
They have to rely onpersuasion to get the cooperation of advertising, sales manufacturing, and other departments.They are told they are “minipresidents” but are often treated as low-level coordinators. Theyare burdened with a great amount of "housekeeping" paperwork. They often have to go overthe heads of others to get something done.Second, product managers become experts in their product but rarely become expertsin any of the functions.
They facilitate between posing as experts and being cowed by realexperts. This is unfortunate when the product depends on a specific type of expertise, such asadvertising.Third, the product-management system often turns out to be costlier than anticipated.Originally, one person is appointed to manage each major product. Soon product managersare appointed to manage even minor products.
Each product manager, usually overworked,pleads for and gets an associate brand manages. Later, both overworked, they persuademanagement to give them an assistant brand manager. With all these people, payroll costsclimb. In the meantime, the company continues to increase its functional specialists in copy,packaging, media, sales promotion, market surveys, statistical analysis, and so on. Thecompany becomes saddled with a costly structure of product-management people andfunctional specialists.Fourth, brand managers normally manage their brand for only a short time. Eitherproduct managers move up in a few years to another brand or they transfer to anothercompany, or they leave product management altogether. Their short-term involvement withthe brand leads to short-term marketing planning and plays havoc with building up thebrand's long-term strengths.Fifth, the fragmentation of markets means that it gets harder to develop a nationalstrategy from headquarters.
Brand managers must please more regional-based trade groupsand rely more on the local sales force and on local sales promotion.Pearson and Wilson have suggested five steps to make the product-managementsystem work better:Clearly delineate the limits of the product manager's role and responsibility for theproduct. At too many companies, product managers are essentially proposes, not deciders.Build a strategy-development-and-review process to provide an agreed-to frameworkfor the product manager's operations. Too many companies allow product managers to getaway with shallow marketing plans featuring a lot of statistics but little strategic rationale.53 Take into account areas of potential conflict between product managers andfunctional specialists when defining their respective roles.
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