Biology

SALES AND MARKETING FUNCTIONS:  includes all activities necessary to bring consumers the goods or services produced by the company, thus satisfying their needs and trying to achieve the best results. (a product is sold if there is a good marketing policy that publicizes and makes it desirable.Duties of the sales and marketing department: planning and control, market research, product promotion and advertising, sales.THE MARKET: is defined as a set of purchasing and sales activities of a product conducted by sellers and buyers.TYPES OF MARKET:Perfect competition markets:There are many companies, strong competition and free entry and exit of the market.Products of the different competitors are poorly differentiated.Price and quantity produced are established through the law of supply and demand.Imperfect competition: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition.Markets in which some of the characteristics of the perfect competition are not fulfilled. Companies try to achieve greater control of  the market, in order to influence the price and improve their profits. Types:Monopoly: When we only have one company and many buyers, no competition, sale of a single good or service (prince quantity decided by the companyOligopoly: few companies and many buyers, strong competition, products similar but poorly differentiated, similar prices and trade policies, danger of agreements between policies.Monopolistic competition: many companies and buyers, similar but differentiated products, trade policy aimed at product differentiation.MARKET DEMAND:Global demand: total amount of purchases of a product made in a period.Business demand: is the amount of purchases that makes a specific company in a specific period of time. Market share: proportion of the total market shares that corresponds to the company.  MS= (company market (sales)/Total market(industry sales)) x100.EXTERNAL VARIABLE AND MARKETING RESEARCH:A market research is to collect, process and analyze information about the environment, competitors and consumers. This info. is necessary to: define the planning of actions to be carried out by the company.make decisions with the best chance of success. MARKET RESEARCH PHASES: Define the objective to research: know what i want to do and where i want to go, this to the fact of not to waste money and time. 

Design the research model: using available info sources: internal or external surveys, observation, experimentation and taking into account the statistics from official agencies. Data collection: difficult and costly process by which you can obtain: Primary data collected for the study, info about: General and specific environment analysis (legal, technological, social, economic)Competitors analysis (location, comparison)Consumer analysis (behavior, classification depending on the capacity of making decision, purchasing habits)Secondary data: previously collected for another purpose but useful for the study in question. Eg: census data.Classify and organize the data: once data are obtained, they’re clarified by statistical processes, either in the form of tables, graphics….Analyze and interpret data: is the critical phase, as the decision to intervene or not in the market will depend on the result obtained.Presentation of results: prepare and submit the final report. Contents: (contenido): Objectives of the analysis, Methodology used, Technical results, Conclusions. VARIABLES TO BE ANALYZEDGeneral and specific environment analysis: is subdued into: Legal environment: know all that regulate their activity.Technological environment: technological improvements.Social environment: including changes in consumers. Economic environment: know the fluctuations experienced in business cycles: recession, crisis, expansion.  Competitors analysis.Competitors: group of companies that manufacture or market the same product or service as we are in the same market. Analysis step: Locate such competitors. Know as possible about them. (market share, suppliers, prices…)Compare our situation with theirs (strengths, weaknesses, advantages, disadvantages.)Consumer analysis: great objective of the commercial function, understand their needs, desires, preferences, lifestyles and therefore consumption behavior. Most important figures in relation to the purchase decision: the prescriber (who recommended), buyer (who acquired, consumer (who satisfies his need)), IMPORTANT: Who buys? Where? Why? How much? When? And what?

+ Market segmentation: The definition of products or services is conditioned by the type of customers who will buy and consume. Divided by homogeneous need, similar behaviours, their buying habits, and therefore all these constitute their market segmentation, groups called target audience or target. To define the target audience 3 criteria: Socio-demographic criteria: customers are grouped according to variables such as sex, education level. Socioeconomic criteria: they are grouped according to aspects such as income level, social class…Psychographic criteria: they’re grouped according to variables such as personality, lifestyle…MARKETING MIX.PRODUCT Is an essential element in the marketing policy as it is the object through which the company influences the market. It is everything that consumers want to buy and so that satisfy their needs.The product definition includes several aspects like: quality (production), design, packaging, brand (name, logo), target audience.Companies tries try to create monopolies with their productsBrand: name, term, symbol, logo that is used to identify the product; includes two elements: the name and the logo and the companies applies different strategies to reinforce it (Sony)Positioning: Product image that consumers have compared with the competitor’s or with other products of the same company. 2 types: Positioning strategies related to product:Based on a product attribute-(alkaline batteries)Based on the B* offered-(Actimel)Based on the comparison of competitors-(fruit juice).Positioning strategies related to brand:Based on quality-(Pascual)Based on prestige-(Ferrari)Based on lower prices-(Day supermarkets)Life cycle:Introduction stage: launching release of the product, the sales in this stage are low and the growth is slow.Growth Stage: the product becomes known and the growth is strong.Maturity Stage: sales stabilizes and the company tries to find new consumers. Saturation or decline stage: sales fall significantly and the company begins to consider withdrawing or re-launching the product.PRICEPrice is the amount of money that the buyer of a particular good or service provides the seller in exchange for a purchase, and is the fastest variable that influences the decisions of the buyers.His fixation doesn’t depend just on the  will of the company, also on other factors such as the market demand, product cost, competitors, stage of life cycle…Different pricing strategies: 

Economic theory: they set a price in order to get the maximum income possible , always taking into account the elasticity of demand.The costs: price will be set after adding a certain profit margin for the product on the cost of acquiring or producing it. If pricing is based on COMPETITORS, we differentiate: Set a price similar to competitors.Set a price below competitors. Set a higher price thet the competitors (if we’re considered high)Psychological pricing (other technique) using numbers not round. Eg: 4.99€. Maximum prices strategies (high prices/low and prestigious sector) or penetrating pricing (low price/wide sector)In any case where there is a leading company, competitors follow its pricing guidelines. DISTRIBUTIONAllows that products stay in the right place and time to be purchased by consumers, including the entire set of processes that lead the products from the company to consumers.3 steps: storage, physical distribution, billing and charging. Distribution channel: producer comes directly. Own or direct channel when the producer comes directly.External or alien channel: products are not distributed by the producer, the intermediaries appears, and they can be wholesalers (sell large quantities to another companies) or retailers (sell small quantities to final consumer). Distribution strategies depend on the control that companies want to have on their products and the nº of establishments they want to arrive. 3 types: Exclusive d. : when the sale in a concrete area is made through a single intermediary.Selective d.: made by a limited number of dealers (expensive product).Intensive distribution: when trying to set the product in most sales points.PROMOTION: The promotion aims to increase sales by making public the product or service in the market.  Also aims to enhancing (mejoreando) the image of the company.This is achieved by applying different policies of external communication of the company as:Advertising: act of transmitting a concrete message using a mass media like radio, television or print media paid by a certain company with the intention of influencing consumer behavior. It has two basic functions:inform about the product features.capture attention, create desires in consumers and persuade them to buy.