Functions Of Marketing

First and foremost marketing is a process and a function that influence an organisation's ability to deliver value to customers.

The American Marketing Association (2006) define marketing as "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders."

The above definition clearly places marketing as a function, and a process. This process is managed by the marketing function in most organizations depending on their 'market orientation' (Kolter et al 2006, p. 15). In addition, to being a function, marketing is also a philosophy of values and practices that determine an organization's approach to business (Bernard 1987, p. 78; Kolter et al 2006, pp. 15-19).

The growing importance of delivering value and satisfaction to the customer is the central theme in marketing management in many organizations (Webster 1992, p. 14). As Drucker (cited in Kolter et al 2001, p. 4) notes "Business success is not determined by the producer but by the customer".

Indeed, marketing management plays a critical role in the success of an organisation. Moorman & Rust (1999) in their extensive study concluded that marketing function "manages connections between the organization and the customer", in turn contributes to the financial performance.

The significant influence of marketing function over strategic decision-making and outweighing the authority of other functions within organizations suggest that other professionals are not employed to manage these functions (Homburg et al. cited in Harris & Ogbonna 2003, p. 487).

In conclusion, it has been shown from the above that the province of marketing clearly encompasses the management of people, processes and physical environment of businesses within organizations

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Marketing Association 2006, Dictionary of marketing terms.

Bernard, KN 1987, 'Functional practice and conceptual function - the inherent dichotomy of marketing', Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 73-82.

Buzzell, RD, Gale, BT, Sultan, RGM 1975, 'Market share - a key to profitability', Harvard Business Review, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 97-106.

Currim, IS & Schneider, LG 1991, 'A taxonomy of consumer purchase strategies in a promotion intensive environment', Marketing Science, vol. 10, no.