Marketing and organizational strategies

Hello everyone and welcome back once again! In my blog today we are going to be looking at the different types of organizational structures and also some very important key ideas that play a role in the strategy of all businesses; lastly I am going to wrap up with some other key terms that are important to the business world and running a successful business.

Let’s begin with defining what exactly an organization is and also what a strategy is.

Organization: An organization is a legal entity that is made up of people who share              a common mission (Kerin)

**** There is a catch to organizations; organizations can be divided into 2 different categories 
a business firm and a non-profit organization *****

Now let’s define these two terms before we move on to defining strategy.

Business Firm: A firm that is privately owned and operated. The goal of a business firm is to serve its customers to produce a profit so that the business can stay afloat (Kerin)

• Some examples of a business firm are American eagle, Old Navy, and Volvo. All of these businesses sell their products to their customers to make a profit. Old Navy and American eagle sell their cloths to their customers for a profit and Volvo sells their cars to their customers to make a profit as well. 
  
       

Non-Profit Organization: A non-government owned organization that assists its customers but does not make a profit in doing so (Kerin).

•   Some examples of a non-profit organization are Habit for Humanity, and the American heart association. All of these companies operate to serve its customers but their intent is to not make a profit. when looking at habit for humanity; this organization goes around and helps people rebuild things that have been destroyed by natural disasters and the American Heart Association is that helps to reduce the amount of people who are dying from cardiovascular diseases and strokes; they are not doing this to earn money they are doing this to help their community. 

                          

I want to make it clear to all of you that there is a difference between these types of organizations. They have different criteria but are both considered types of business organizations.

Now that we have defined the different types of organizations we can identify what a strategy is.

Strategy: an organizations long term course of action intended to provide a unique customer experience while at the same time attaining its goals (Kerin).

These terms are going to help us understand the structure of today’s organizations. We can now look into the structure that most organizations use to keep their businesses in line. These levels are Corporate, strategic business unit and functional. All three of these functions fall under the board of directors. 

Corporate Level: Where top managers direct over all strategy for the entire organization. The CEO of a company is the highest ranked person in an organization and is part of the corporate level (Kerin).

SKILLS TO BE AT THE CORPORATE LEVEL:

• Variety of skills and experience 
• possess leadership
• thinking strategically 
• analytic skills 

Strategic Business unit: Mangers set a more specific strategic direction for their business to exploit value creating opportunities. The strategic business unit of SBU is a subsidiary division of an organization that markets a set of related offerings to a defined group of individuals. This then leads us into the functional level (Kerin).

.

Functional level: Groups of specialists create value for the organization. At the functional level the organizations strategic direction become extremely specific and focused (Kerin).

                                                                      Examples

• Marketing manager
• Finance manage
• Human resources manager 
• Research and development 

To have a successful structure in your organization all of these pieces and parts have to fit together perfectly; if there are flaws in the system then the structure is not going to be able to function at its full potential.

This is a very important concept to understand but there are also some very important terms and ideas that make businesses function at there full potential.

those terms are Core Values, Mission and Goal.

Core Values: An organizations core values are the fundamental, passionate and long lasting principles that guides a business over time. You can also define it is a firms way of putting their heart and soul into their business. Without successful core values the company will not have a long lasting and successful business (Kerin).

Mission: A statement of a businesses function in society that identifies its customers, markets, products and technologies. The mission statement of a company should be clear, meaningful, easy to understand and also long term (Kerin).

Lets look at an example of a mission statement; lets take Ben and Jerry's for example. They have a three part mission statement and you can take a look at it if you click on the link below!

http://www.benjerry.com/values

Goal: Goals or also know as objectives are statements of an accomplishment of a task to be achieved in the future (Kerin).

 There are several different types of goals a company can pursue:

• profit
• sales 
• market share 
• quality 
• customer satisfaction
• employee welfare 
• social responsibility 

All of these parts that we have gone through above are very important when it comes to having a successful marketing and organizational strategy. If you have a weak organizational structure and the people in the corporate level of your organization are not performing as they should then it is going to trickle down and the rest of the organization is going to suffer. It is also very important to have a strong mission statement, well thought out core values and strong goals that you want to achieve. 

I hope that you have enjoyed this blog and learned a little bit more about organizational structures, strategies and some important terms. I have attached a link at the bottom it is a video that outlines a little more about Ben and Jerry's mission. 

Ben and Jerry's mission statement video

Until next time!

Alexis 

Sources used:

Kerin, Roger A., and Steven William Hartley. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print.