Marketing and Stakeholders in the Food Industry Assignment

Marketing and Stakeholders in the Food Industry - Assignment Example In addition, the work finds out the various aspects of the marketing concept and illustrates how the marketing concept can be useful for the growth and development of an organization. Lastly, the work identifies the various stakeholders of McDonalds and suggests effective ways of communication that will satisfy each group. In general terms, the concept of marketing claims that in order to gain organisational goals, it is necessary to understand the needs and wants of the target market and deliver the required level of satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors. Thus one can say that under marketing concept, it is more important to sell satisfaction than to sell product (Jain, 2006-07, pp. 292-293). According to AMA definition, â€Å"Marketing† is â€Å"the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that will satisfy individual and organisational objectives† (Shah & D’Souza, 2009, p. 8). Marketing concept and other business philosophies An analysis of the marketing concept proves that it does not focus on maximising profit through increased sales volume. Instead, it gains profit through increased satisfaction of customers. Thus, in the marketing concept, customer is the central figure around which all marketing activities take place. In essence, it becomes necessary to identify the target customers, develop an understanding with them, understand their demands, and provide services and goods to their satisfaction. One can summarise the components of marketing as satisfaction of customers, integration of various marketing activities, and good sales volume (Moore, et al. 2006, p. 142). This concept of marketing is different from the concepts of production, product, selling and holistic marketing. The selling concept was in vogue before the introduction of the marketing concept that is, during 1950s and 1960s. In this concept, the co mpany mainly aims to sell a product to the maximum and gives little attention to the precise requirements of the customers (Kuratko, 2008, p. 359). In that case, the company continues selling a product adopting various promotion schemes. In other words, the company focuses mainly on selling methods to attain maximum profit (Ibid). Yet another important concept is product concept. It focuses primarily on the quality of the product. In other words, a company gives maximum attention to the quality of its product on the belief that as far as the product is of high quality, consumers will be attracted to the product. Similarly, companies used to adopt the concept of production until 1950s. It claims that when a product or service is in maximum demand in the marketplace, the company should focus on producing that product or service as much as possible. An important part of marketing is marketing research. It becomes necessary for all companies to research their market in order to set thei r direction initially and to assess their performance thereafter. There are various sources to collect marketing information. Some primary sources are customers, dealers, and salesmen. As customers are the people who use the product, they are the best source of information regarding the quality of the product in terms of price, packaging, availability, design etc. similarly, dealers are capable of offering some useful information regarding the customer response to the products. In addition, they will be able to offer vital information regar