2012

RESTRUCTURING OF MARKETING
FUNCTION FOR GREATER EFFECIENCY

I confirm that in forwarding this assignment for marking, I

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assignment is the result Independent work/investigation
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acknowledged in the body of the text and/or a
bibliography is appended. The work that I have submitted
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work with other candidates

CAIRO OIL & SOAP

COMPANY

Total Word Count: 6334 words excluding table of

contents, executive summary, headings and appendices

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 03
2. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 04
2.1.
Marketing Environment ............................................................................................................... 05
2.2.
Key Challenges and Issues .......................................................................................................... 06
2.3.
Managing Potential Areas of Conflicts ........................................................................................ 07
2.4.
Marketing Performance Measures ............................................................................................... 08
3. Management and Leadership............................................................................................................... 10
3.1.
Difference between Management and Leadership....................................................................... 10
3.2.
Leadership Traits, Skills and Attitudes ........................................................................................ 10
3.3.
Marketing Process ....................................................................................................................... 12
4. Marketing Team .................................................................................................................................... 12
4.1.
Current Marketing Team ............................................................................................................. 12
4.2.
Recommendations........................................................................................................................ 12
4.3.
Justifications ................................................................................................................................ 13
5. Change Management ............................................................................................................................ 14
5.1.
Team Role.................................................................................................................................... 14
5.2.
Team Development Stages .......................................................................................................... 14
5.3.
Change Process ............................................................................................................................ 15
5.4.
Change Curve Stages and Manager Role .................................................................................... 15
5.5.
Role of the Manager After Change .............................................................................................. 16
5.6.
Reviewing the Process ................................................................................................................. 17
6. Talent Management .............................................................................................................................. 18
6.1.
Talent Management Process ........................................................................................................ 18
6.2.
Recommendation for CTM Program ........................................................................................... 19
6.3.
Justification .................................................................................................................................. 21
7. Budget..................................................................................................................................................... 22
7.1.
Budgeting Method ...................................................................................................................... 22
7.2.
Budget Outline and Implementation ............................................................................................ 22
7.3.
Balance Score Card...................................................................................................................... 23
8. Personal Development........................................................................................................................... 24
8.1.
Personal Development Plan ........................................................................................................ 24
8.2.
Action Plan .................................................................................................................................. 25
9. Appendices ............................................................................................................................................. 26
Appendix 1. Company Profile ..................................................................................................................... 26
Appendix 2. Marketing Department Structure ............................................................................................ 28
10. Terms of References .......................................................................................................................... 29

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

1. Executive Summary
Cairo Oil and Soap is an Egyptian FMCG company, it is a leading one in the oils and fats
industry with a market share of 20%. Recently, the company faced drop in sales and the
marketing director has asked the marketing manager to develop new initiatives towards
enhanced marketing performance to enhance and generate more sales and profits.
The company works in a dynamic environment which highly influences marketing
performance. A thorough understanding of the marketing environment in which the company
operates internally and externally is conducted and Key challenges and issues that affected
marketing performance are identified. Interdepartmental conflicts between marketing people
and conflicts between marketing and other departments and their management are addressed.
Marketing performance measures such as accounting measures, productivity measures,
relationship marketing and customer related measures and internal measures of performance are
used to evaluate the companys marketing performance.
Leadership and management differences helped to determine leadership style in our company
which deemed to be autocratic and dictatorial style in most of the ways the marketing is
operating. Leadership traits, skills and attitude helped to show better ways of management that
could be pursued.
It was revealed that current marketing team members are working remotely from each other
with silo mentality, with no coordination or sense of shared goals, with the lack of effective
communication. Recommendation for team restructuring and job restructuring is mandatory for
greater marketing function efficiency.
The marketing manager roles varied from strategic to operational activities, key responsibilities
and roles of marketing manager during and after the change are identified with high
consideration given to team role and team development stages. Restructuring of marketing
teams requires efficient change management because most of the people in the company don't
agree with change. Therefore, change processes and change curve are good tools that helped in
the change implantation.
CTM Program is developed to enhance and develop talents of the existing staff and recruitment
of external talented people on a very smaller scale using talent management process and
ADDIE model. Recommendations and justifications for the talent management are set based a
training need analysis.
In setting the budget for the talent management programme, the company pursued bottom-up
approach because it is the most suitable in all situations by using objective and task method.
The balance score card is used to measure KPIs towards the end of implementing the talent
development program.
For the marketing manager, it was important to focus on self development and identify the
areas of personal development and set a personal development plan to be able to develop
individuals and teams in marketing department; this will pave the way towards effective
restructuring of the marketing function for better marketing performance.
Executive Summary: 447 Words

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2. Introduction

Cairo Oil and Soap is an Egyptian FMCG company, it is a leading company in the oils and fats
industry with a market share of 20%.
More than 300 employees working within it, about 30 people only work in the marketing
department.
It has been undergoing a major restructuring marketing plan to turnaround the company from
an inefficient one to a renowned company with distinguished brands in the market.
It has a wide range of products including vegetable ghee, cooking & frying oils, soap and that
are widely to the consumers all over Egypt oil & fats products used an ingredient in different
food industrial applications to the industry.

Vision:
To offer a full range of quality products, achieve sustainable profits and increase market share
by delivering excellence and by further developing products competencies, retain and develop
people providing them with the necessary trainings and tools as they are the most valuable asset
with concern on customer equity and customer needs.

Objectives:
-

Reach sales of 200 million in 2012 and 300 million by 2013

Generate ROI of 7.4 by 2013.

Improve profitability 10% by May of 2013

Increase market share by 5% by 2013,

Enhance and develop Marketing systems by March 2013,

Increase staff retention to reach 70% by Mid 2013

Increase customer retention to 80% by 2013.

Recently, the company faced drop in sales due to inefficient marketing function, therefore, the
marketing director has asked the marketing manager to develop new initiatives towards
enhanced marketing performance to generate more sales and profits.

Introduction: 260 Words

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2.1.

Marketing Environment

Cairo Oil & Soap works in a dynamic environment which highly influences marketing
performance. To correctly identify opportunities and monitor threats, a thorough understanding
of the marketing environment factors in which the company operates is crucial.
1- External Factors
-

PESTEL

Political situation in Egypt started to stabilize now after almost one and half year of unrest and
turmoil resulted after the revolution that took place in January 2011 which severely affected
oils & fats business.
Unrest lead to delay in shipments and shortage in supply of oils and fats, resulted in less
production, increase of oil prices in the local market, and thus increase in prices and less sales
were generated.
Egypts huge population made it huge domestic market. Changes in society and demographics
greatly influenced business. This provides opportunities, younger population and the increasing
birth rates are both important factors to achieve business growth.
Use of technology helped to reduce production cost, the company capitalized on new
technological achievements by using e-mail marketing, online sales and social media.
Cairo Oil and Soap is concerned with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the role it
plays in the society to promote it and achieve progress.
-

Competition

Competition in the oils and fats industry is very tough, large numbers of companies are
producing almost the same range of products, they are all competing to get share from each
other.
2- Internal Factors
Cairo Oil & Soap is a product structure firm. It is losing potential customers that resulted in
drop in sales due to challenges and issues that severely affected working relationship within the
marketing department and with other functions thus, negatively affected marketing
performance.
It is necessary to identify the key challenges and issues that affected marketing performance
and should work on solving those problems and develop new initiatives towards enhanced
performance.

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2.2.

Key Challenges and Issues

Companys structure is hierarchical and inflexible, roles and responsibilities within the
marketing department are not clear. This bureaucratic structure is not appropriate for
achieving business objectives. It leads to poor customer service and satisfaction, unclear
lines of authority and accountability, lack of control. It also tends to be unresponsive to a
changing external environment.

Slow decision-making and centralization due to tall organization structure resulted in

friction and disagreement. Marketing takes long time to make decisions because they are
referred through prolonged channels of communications.

Marketing department is working separately from other departments making it difficult to

achieve cooperation and coordination as the marketing function is seen as the responsibility
of marketing team only, therefore other departments dont believe in supporting marketing.

Horizontal communication between marketing department and others is slow and

ineffective, difficulty to manage knowledge transfer between departments, meetings
between marketing and other departments occur only once each quarter making it difficult
to respond to any problem that may occur.

No true leaders to inspire and motivate people to align them with the objectives. Managers
lack of innovation and creativity, Poor co-ordination of team activities, disorganized and
chaotic handling of tasks and falling behind deadlines or inability to meet targets.

Employees lack of confidence, motivation, empowerment, delegation and high resistance to

change with the lack of development and training programs to enhance their qualifications
and performance.

Staff is uninvolved in decision making, this result in high staff turnover among skilled staff
who found little opportunities in development. Moreover, the company is not able to attract
skilled and qualified employees due to inefficient recruitment and working process.

Inefficient marketing systems; CRM is used for data capturing without generating any
analysis to show how to achieve customers retention and satisfaction and there is no
Marketing Information System (MKIS), thus it was difficult to accurately identify
marketing threats and opportunities.

Diseconomies of scale resulted in inefficient productivity, delivery costs are very high, and
we dont own vehicles and trucks necessary for transporting goods and use to hire them and
productivity per capita is very low compared to the industry bench mark.

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2.3.

Managing Potential Areas of Conflicts

Irwin et al. (1974) suggest that teams encounter problems whether they are project teams or
long standing operational teams. They highlight four particular categories of problems that can
result in conflict and poor performance that are interdependent, namely problems with; Goals,
Roles, Processes, and Relationships (Sherratt, A. (ed) (2009) The Official CIM Course Book:
Managing Marketing, Elsevier, Oxford, book p. 137). Conflicts and their management are:

Conflict between finance and marketing department, marketing is considered as a cost

rather than an investment, limited marketing budget and cost reduction and price increase to
generate more sales and profits is the main aim of finance while marketing focus on
customer satisfaction which may tends to reduce prices to compete with the competition.
Economies of scales and mass production over the time will reduce cost and thus increase
profitability.

Conflict between production and marketing department with the design or concept of the
product, productions main concern is to increase output while keeping costs to minimum,
they should be customer focus oriented to buy the idea of make what the customer needs as
this is the main concern of marketing. Internal marketing should be used to achieve the
change within the organization and should be designed to foster a deeper appreciation by all
departments of the value and benefits of customer-focus orientation.

Conflict between marketing and sales; sales always pursue a push strategy with the focus to
increase number of sales unit on the expense of customer satisfaction, while marketing use
the pull strategy. Use a mix strategy of push and pull to achieve better results is viable.

Conflict between marketing and HR due to less number of people working in marketing.
Marketing needs new staff while HR is freezing this in addition to poor ways of selection.
To resolve these problems training and development of existing staff is essential.

Interdepartmental conflicts between marketing people due to overlap of responsibilities and

unclear roles lead to work duplication and drop in the efficiency of productivity level. It is
crucial to clearly communicate responsibilities, and objectives and it should be updated
regularly. Also Work load and pressure is a source of problems that exists between
marketing people, as only few number of marketers have to tackle with large number of
products. Informal organization such as informal meetings, gathering and family days
enhances relationship between team members and reduce probability of conflicts, a wider
span of control to empower and satisfy staff is also necessary.

Silo mentality persists, no coordination between departments. Company should foster

integration to maximize the horizontal flow of work and this lead to cross-functional team
working and goals alignments. Boundary less structure, where barriers are eliminated by
participative decision-making, everyone needs to work together and encouraged to meet
regularly to share relevant issues.

Conflict between marketing and other departments because horizontal communication is

slow and ineffective, difficulty to manage knowledge transfer. Adopting flat organization
structure and establishing communication mechanisms for internal marketing and
periodical team meeting every two weeks is good to resolve communication problems.

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2.4.

Marketing Performance Measures

1- Accounting Measures
Profit and loss statement is applied to estimate the ROI. The investment of 23,230,000
generated 160,000,000 EGP by end of 2011.
ROI = (Return-Cost) /investment x 100%
(160,000,000-23,230,000) / 23,230,000 = 5.9
ROI generated is 5.9 EGP is too low compared to other companies and compared to benchmark
industry which is 7 EGP

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2- Productivity Measures
Productivity per capita is inefficient. The yearly average sales of sales reps are very low
compared to the industry bench mark.
10,000 units sales/ year x 7.50 EGP (unit price) = 75,000 EGP, by calculating the cost that the
company encounters for each sales reps including monthly salaries, transportation, etc. It was
found that each rep. costs about 30,000 EGP / years

Productivity = Outputs/inputs
75,000 / 50, 000 = 1.5 EGP
3- Relationship Marketing and Customer Related Measures
CRM system is used only for data capturing without generating any reports and analysis to
show how to achieve customers retention and satisfaction based on customer relationship
management.
The company is losing potential customers due to inefficient marketing communication with
them, core messages unsuccessfully reaches target customer groups, therefore, no repeat sales
are generated and no referrals from current customers are achieved.
4- Internal Measures of Performance
Internal measures of performance such as recruitment, retention, attitude, performance and
communication is not monitored and evaluated. It is important to know how individuals
performance is revealed with comparison with other companies and with the industry
benchmark.

Task One: 1478 Words

Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

3. Management and Leader ship

3.1.

Difference Between Management and Leadership

John Kotter (2001) makes a distinction between leadership and management. The distinction is
brought out in the present era of rapid technological change, changing demographics, economic
turbulences and increasing level of competition (Sherratt, A. (ed) (2009) The Official CIM
Course Book: Managing Marketing, Elsevier, Oxford, book p. 68).

Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things

(Warren Bennis and Peter Drucker)

Managers are task oriented with a short term view, dont form second line, achieve tasks
with demotivated team while leaders are central, have a long term vision by focusing to
achieve the task, build and maintain the team and develop the individual. They form second
line and achieve tasks by inspiring and motivating people.

Manager depends on his power of authority to control more things, but a leader depends on
his capabilities, confident, influence and inspires people.

Managers do things in the right way, leaders do the right things.

Manager believes in rules, and accepts status quo, while leader initiate things, compare
team performance before and after his presence and challenge status quo.

Manager gives orders, following and managing, but leader has a vision and he is clever in
planning to achieve it.

3.2.

Leadership Traits, Skills and Attitudes

In our company, leadership style is autocratic and dictatorial in most of the ways the marketing
is operating. Marketing director depends on power and authority and focusing on tasks to
achieve results rather than influencing and inspiring people. There is no delegation or
empowerment. In decision making, not all people are involved which leads to low morale and
lack of the sense of affiliation. No care is given to peoples development and retentions.
There is a need for a transformational leader who has the ability to influence people through
being admired, respected, appreciated, trusted and accepted. Leader use rational in persuasion,
rely on the rule of reciprocity, extends formal authority with expertise and credibility, leading
with love not leading with fear and bringing love to work. He inspires people, moves them
beyond their interest for the good of the company and ensures they understand the vision and
objectives of the company.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Leadership Traits
According to McCare and Hohn (1992), there are five basic groups of traits which be
considered as some of the basic building blocks of personality (Sherratt, A. (ed) (2009) The
Official CIM Course Book: Managing Marketing, Elsevier, Oxford, book p. 75).
The big 5 basic groups of traits are:
Neuroticism the experience of negative emotion
Extraversion interest in people and being in charge
Openness liking the new and different
Agreeableness going along to get along
Conscientiousness - liking a structured and organized life

Leadership Skills
Conceptual and decision skills: Refer to the cognitive ability to see the organization as a
whole and the relationships among its parts.
People skills: Involve the ability to work with and through other people and to work effectively
as a group member.
Technical skills: The ability to perform a specialized task that involves a certain method or
process.
Leadership Styles
Autocratic style: Centralizes authority, dictates work, and limits people participation. This
style although though but it is suitable if staff is not qualified and need training, and if people
are in conflict and challenging authority.
Democratic style: Involves employees in decision making, delegates, encourages participation
and uses feedback to coach employees, this style is suitable when jobs are repetitive, and
responsibility is clear.
Delegating: People have complete freedom and they can decide, this style is suitable when
people are skilled and self motivated.
Steve Jobs, the genius behind more than three decades of revolutionary innovation at Apple,
Pixar and Disney is an excellent leadership example that can be followed for some of the
qualities
that
stand
out
most
(Timneufeld
(2011)
[online],
Available
at:http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/2011/10/why-i-think-steve-jobs-was-a-great-leader-butwould-make-a-terrible-pastor.html [accessed 26 Aug 2012]).

A rebel. Jobs was never satisfied with the status quo.

An optimist. Never willing to succumb to defeat.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

A dreamer. Jobs was never inclined to do things the same as everyone else.
An enabler. Allowed employees to be creative, and to dream for themselves.

An adapter. Cultural shifts were not something to be feared.

A philanthropist. Transformed the lives of more than two million Africans

3.3.

Marketing Process

In Cairo Oil & Soap process is very slow due to bureaucracy, decisions-making is timeconsuming and made in the wrong time. Managers follow routine work without any innovation,
they use same agencies to conduct market research, dont look for new agencies to undertake
the research in better ways and depend on marketing research department to undertake audits
and research and due to unskilled and less people, the data that are generated are not enough
and not leading to effective decisions.
The company is unsuccessfully able to deliver marketing activities through the marketing mix
because of weak planning for the development of the marketing mix. It was not well
communicated to target market. Also marketing activities are not evaluated for better
enhancement if needs or to keep for future action. Accordingly, there is a need for the
restructuring of the marketing function and team for higher efficiency.

4. Marketing Team
4.1.

Current Marketing Team

Current marketing team is formed of the marketing director, sales manager, marketing manager,
product manager, public relation manager, and research manager. Objectives are established by
the marketing director and decisions are made by him without any involvement from other team
members.
Marketing activities and work is coordinated by product manager who most of the time
provides new and innovative ideas. Product manager is trying to coordinate work between the
team and takes responsibility for controlling and monitoring work, he is excellent at
overcoming difficult problems.
Team members are working remotely from each other with silo mentality, with no coordination
and lack of effective communication. When decisions are made, team members dont know the
main objectives and goals the falls beyond them.
4.2.

Recommendations

1- Team Restructuring
Two new positions will be introduced to the marketing team; there is a need to employ account
manager who will be responsible for large group accounts and marketing campaign manager
who will choose relevant events and implement and evaluate marketing activities. IT manager
will be chosen from within the company for the enhancement of marketing systems (CRM and
MKIS) and Marketing mix manager will be selected from the existing staff.
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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

2- Job Restructuring
-

Job enrichment: It entails a vertical expansion of the job. The marketing director will
delegate some operational tasks to marketing and sales managers and monitor their work
and achievements.

Job enlargement: With the horizontal expansion of the job through training and teaching
several different jobs which can be achieved through the limited number of employees.
Therefore, qualified and skilled people will be selected and given incentives and rewards to
increase their loyalty, and new tasks will be assigned to the public relation manager such as
social PR.

Job rotation: Two of the sales representatives will be reallocated to new geographical
areas in Delta and North Sinai.

4.3.

Justification

Restructuring is essential to ensure optimization of both productivity and efficiency, in order to

take full advantage of external environment changes, both now and in the future. Establishing a
cross-functional team that collaborates with each other and where every member in the team
should contribute to the final results, will lead to synergistic and harmonious teams for
marketing and relationships with others department, Therefore higher performance will be
achieved resulting in higher sales and profitability.

Task Two: 1184 Words

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

5. Change Management
Restructuring of marketing team requires efficient change management because most of the
people don't agree with change, they don't want to leave their comfort zone and they also don't
understand the importance of a change. In managing the change, team role and team
development stages should be considered as well as change process and change curve stages.
5.1.

Team Role

Belbin identified several clusters for the team role which he identified as types (Sherratt, A.
(ed) (2009) The Official CIM Course Book: Managing Marketing, Elsevier, Oxford, book p.
83):
1- Plant: Person who plants ideas in the team, creative, innovative.
2- Resource Investigator: Looks outside the organization for better possibilities.
3- Coordinator: Obtain contribution from team members.
4- Shaper: Pushes to get action to happen and challenging.
5- Monitor Evaluator: Takes an objective view and often makes excellent decisions.
6- Team worker: Strives for harmony, and make sure everyone is included where possible.
7- Implementer: Active person, action-oriented and takes any given task and carries it out
8- Completer-Finisher: A detail-oriented person and perfectionist

5.2.

Team Development Stages

Tuckman (1965) suggests that teams go through four stages in the restructuring:
1- Forming
Diversified peoples back ground need to be acquired by having good combination of people
from different departments and in different areas. Here, people dont know each other and they
are trying to understand what they are going to do. Manager should enhance and strengthen
relationship with team members by inviting them to informal gatherings and social events.
Manager style to be telling, instruct subordinates what to do and how to do it. This style provide
a means of managing a diverse group of people that span a wide range of experience and
maturity levels.
2- Storming
Conflicts between members will arise. Manager will encourage team members to take part and
communicate with them on how to solve conflicts and convert threats into opportunities and
also to encourage informal organization. Selling style is used where information and direction
will be provided. Within this role, managers sell their message to get employees on board,
persuading them to work toward the common goal.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

3- Norming
Members become more familiar to each other, roles and responsibilities are clear. Manager
style is participating; he works closely with the team and shares decision-making,
responsibilities, encourage them to use their skills in creativity, innovation, and problemsolving and assure they realize the value of contribution and involvement.
4- Performing
Members focus on their roles and responsibilities and they are communicating effectively and
willing to share ideas and opinions. Manager should effectively focus on developing good
communications skills and monitor performance to evaluate the results. Manager style is
delegating, by passing much of the responsibility for the execution and completion of the
established goals onto the individual subordinates.
5.3.

Change Process

Lewin (1958), cited in Brunes (1996) suggest three steps model for change process:

Unfreezing the status quo

Changing to a new state

Refreezing to make the change permanent

Change process is adopted through several stages:

Exploration Stage: identify areas of change and allocate resources required

Planning Phase: searching for the information to identify the problem, setting objectives
and gain support from top management

Action Phase: change implementation, evaluation and take corrective actions when needed

Integration Phase: reward systems, dissemination of relevant information and encourage

improvement

5.4.

Change Curve Stages and Manager Role

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Confusion and denial: Focus on clear and timely communication to all those affected,
provide frequent information.

Anger or blame: Be patient; avoid angry response, communicate core messages.

Bargaining: Show positive benefits of change, be clear with core messages and repeat them
continuously and provide emotional support.

Depression: listen sympathetically to team issues, offer emotional support to minimize the
amount of time spent in the depressed bottom phase of the curve. Manager should give
direction, focus, measures and feedback, and motive team.

Testing: Tap positive energy to help team.

Acceptance: Tap positive energy to help team.

Integration: work as a solution, focus should be on supporting and guiding, as the team
explore the possibilities and make decisions on how the change will work for them.

5.5.

Role of Manager After Change

Set work standards and develop guidelines, so that every member has a clear understanding
for what is required to be done and how it should be executed.

Coordinate work between team members so everyone knows his role without duplication
and time wasting.

Facilitate synergistic and harmonious team through interrelated cross-functions. Marketing

will cooperate with HR in the selection of new candidates, set prices with finance and
collaborate with production to change products designs based on customer needs.

Makes sure team creates effective marketing publications that can be used to educate
prospects and customers on services and products and create internal messages that educate
companys employees about new products or the recent success of a marketing campaign.

Develops companys marketing strategy with the help of product , finance, sales and
market research managers, they estimate the demand for products and services, and identify
potential markets.

Develops marketing programmes across the appropriate marketing mix and oversee the
implementation by managing staff, vendors and agencies, and ensure that objectives are
measured and achieved. Further do analysis of the results and make correction to plans if
required.

Makes sure that marketing expenses stays within the set budget and must guarantee that
targets are achieved. Determine not only the cost of each promotional activity, but also how
the money is allocated.

Lead generation to drive new business and repeat sales revenue. Marketing manager must
work with sales to make sure that marketing tools are communicated to the right target
audience and producing high leads.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Develop pricing strategy in collaboration with sales, product development, and other
managers, they monitor trends that indicate the need for new products and services, and
they oversee product development.

5.6.

Reviewing the Process

PCDA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is used to determine the success of changes made and work
on reducing defects, it provides the basic approach to
continuous improvement.

Plan: Define and plan the change.

Do: Implement the change.
Check: Monitor the change, analyzing the effectiveness
of the change.
Act: Adjust based on the analysis, initiating appropriate
improvement activities.

In reviewing the change process all four stages of the Deming

Cycle are used. With ongoing improvement, the focus is on
the Check and Act stages to monitor, measure, review, and
implement improvement initiatives.
PDCA cycle needs trigger to ensure the process is initiated. Triggers can be built into specific
processes, such as a change review, or they can be planned periodic activities such as
management reviews. Metrics also provide important information that can trigger improvement
activity.
Improvement Triggers Include:

Management reviews: Routine reviews that reveal gaps.

Audits: Variances in performance requirements to pass audits.

Metrics and reporting: Management reports, scorecards, or dashboards that point to gaps
in actual vs. desired results for change processes

Assessments: Variances in efficiency or effectiveness of performance as compared to

industry standard.

Task Three: 1162 Words

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

6. Talent Management
6.1.

Talent Management Process

Talent management is the process of ensuring that the organization attracts, retains, motivates
and develops the talented people it needs (Armstrong, 2009). It refers to the overall process
whereby an organization systematically attracts skilled, high quality recruits; integrates new
workers into organization; systematically performance manages, trains and develop current
workers, in order to meet current and future competence requirement; and retains skilled
workers within the organization (Sherratt, A. (2012) Study Text: Managing Marketing, BPP
Learning Media LTD, London, book p. 145).
Restructuring of the team includes recruitment of new staff, but this will be limited to two
persons only because it entails risk and expense for our company , so the focus will be on
enhance the internal talents by applying talent management programme which will support the
ongoing success of the marketing team and it will be implemented over year 2013.
HR plays an important role in talent management as it is the responsibility of HR manager to
recruit new talented staff & train the existing staff, develop the policies and procedures around
talent management and ensure implementation and evaluation.
Key talent management process include (Armstrong, ibid): (Sherratt, A. (2012) Study Text:
Managing Marketing, BPP Learning Media LTD, London, book p. 146).

Developing the organization as an employer of choice.

Using selection and recruitment procedures that ensure that good quality people are
recruited.
Designing jobs and developing roles which give people opportunities to apply and grow
their skills.
Provide talented staff with opportunities for career development and growth.
Developing a positive psychological contract
Recognizing those with talents by rewarding excellence, enterprise and achievement.
Succession planning; ensuring that the organization has suitable people to fill emerging
vacancies.
Conducting talent audits to identify individuals with potential.

ADDIE model is followed as an important method that is concerned with talent management
starting from analysis until evaluation, it includes:
1- Analyzing Training Needs
Identify goals, collect data like training problems, identify performance gap, propose solution,
determine resources required such as time, money and personnel.
2- Design
Identify target audience, develop training objectives, develop course contents with
consideration to learning curves and develop evaluation criteria.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

3- Development
Decide on the training materials, media use and instructional methods
4- Implementation
Define facilities required like number of participants, budget, onsite or offsite and trainers.
Schedules should be set to ensure employee and trainer availability.
5- Evaluation
Evaluation of goal and outcomes of the training, this can be done on four levels; reaction,
learning, behavior and results.
6.2.

Recommendations for Cairo Talent Management Program (CTM Program):

1- Training Need Analysis (TNA)

TNA is undertaken by external consultants using different methods to identify the gaps of
knowledge, skills and attitudes that is currently possessed and that are required to meet the
companys objectives as follows:
-

Previous annual appraisal forms for each individual as it contains the employee training and
development needs.

Questionnaire form used to obtain a big picture of what a large number of employees think
while allowing everyone to feel that they have an opportunity to take part in the needs
analysis process.

Interview between HR manager and boss to get feedback on areas of strengths and areas of
improvement.

Interview between HR manager and individuals to know the problem they are facing.

TNA revealed that managers need improvement in strategic planning, team members are
lacking some technical skills such as negotiating, customer service & computer knowledge,
some personal skills also needs improvement like confidence, creativity and ability to learn and
absorb knowledge, and they also lack product knowledge. Therefore these skills needed to be
developed using various types of trainings to enhance their skills and help to enhance
performance.
2- Trainings
Off -the Job Trainings
Talents development and improve team performance through staff training, develop training
programs in the areas that was defined in the TNA may include courses, simulations, case
studies role play, outsides seminars and lectures as follows:
-

The 10 top managers will apply for CIM diploma to enhance their marketing knowledge in
the areas of planning and delivering the customer value through marketing.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Sales and marketing individuals will attend workshops to enhance their negotiation skills,
confidence, creativity and ability to learn and absorb knowledge

On-line courses will be provided to enrich academic knowledge on computer.

Simulation and lectures to enhance customer service.

Case studies will be given to develop decision making skills.

On-the Job Trainings

Coaching is an intensive method of on-the job training that involves a close working
relationship between an experienced employee and the trainee. This coaching should be
documented using coaching forms to follow up with employee and track improvement. Product
knowledge will be provided during the on-the job training for all staff.
Recruitment and Staffing
HR manager has to recruit 2 new people that are recommended for the restructuring, select
talented people from outside the company to join and develop induction plan l to orient the new
recruits to various aspects of the organization and it is very important for him to set job
standards.
Succession planning is vital ensures as the company expands, loses key employees, provides
promotional opportunities, and increases sales, succession planning guarantees that we have
employees on hand ready and waiting to fill new roles.
During the interview, it is better to pursue panel interview to avoid bias, semi-structured
interview is necessary and the use of professional agency to do the mapping to assess
candidates. HR manager should avoid common mistakes during the interview such as
stereotyping, halo effect, contrast error.
External Trainers and Consultants
The company doesnt have in-house expertise trainers. Therefore, we should hire external
trainers for the development of the training program and consultants to undertake the TNA and
coaching staff.
Team Motivation and Rewards Systems
Rewards and recognition will enhance the morale for the team during program implementation,
gifts can be given, thank you letters and celebration of success when the team and individuals
will meet targets, results should be acknowledged in a celebration gathering.
Performance Appraisal
Team members need ongoing feedback about their performance after the implementation of the
CTM Program. Using effective feedback system to track performance, results should be
documented and it is essential for conducting annual performance reviews. Specific and timely
feedback like 360-degree is needed so that they can know whether they have met targets or not.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Program Launch
CTM Program will be launched and celebrated in one of the hotels. Employees will be invited,
flyers that include full information about CTM Program will be distributed and gifts will be
given to employees as a sort of motivation. All program information and processes to be
uploaded in the companys website for easier communication.
6.3.

Justification

CTM Program will help to accomplish marketing objectives by developing and enhancing
talented skills. Training and development are essential to improve motivation, lower the
turnover, increase staff retention and achieve higher levels of performance.
On the job training where staff will receive training in the workplace is cost effective and give
the opportunity to learn whilst doing work alongside real colleagues while Off-the-job training
allows people to get away from work and concentrate more thoroughly on the training itself.
Development of CTM Program will make the staff to act as brand ambassadors, thus generate a
competitive advantage by having talents and qualified staff that cannot be easily copied by the
competition and strengthening the company capabilities by having the skills and knowledge
available for emergency situations.
Performance appraisal provides a method of identifying staff with the potential for
development. This in turn emphasizes the value and benefits associated with developing the
internal staff. It also provides a regular means of identifying training and development needs.
Rewards play a significant role in achieving business objectives. This can escort higher
productivity, improved work quality and financial growth across all departments.

Task Four: 1272 Words

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

7. Budget
7.1.

Budgeting Method

There are two different approaches to produce a budget; the top-down approach which starts by
setting a target and then break it down into discrete tasks , it includes using a percentage of
profit or sales, competitive parity, affordable method and/or consideration of share of voice.
The other approach is the bottom-up where budgets are built up from adding detailed activities
together, it includes objective and task, planning and control, consideration of cost-volumeprofit, and/or consideration of share of voice.
In setting the budget for the CTM Program, bottom-up approach is pursued using objective and
task method because it is the most suitable in all situations. The budget is based on estimating
the needs to achieve objectives of CTM Program with clear tasks and resources and it acts as a
guide to ensure that related expenses are in line with the estimated cost.
7.2.

Budget Outline and Implementation

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7.3.

Balanced Scorecard

Balance score card is used to measure KPIs towards the end of implementing the CTM
Program.

Perspective

Financial
Performance

Customers

Business Process

Learning and
Growth

Objective

Measure

Target

Revenue growth

% change in revenues

Return on investment

ROI

Cash flow

Cash flow

Improve profitability

Net profits

New products

+5 %

Quality performance

Number of new product

development
Customer satisfaction
Index
Performance Survey

Stakeholder satisfaction

Stakeholder Survey

80%

New customers

+20%

Cost reduction

% Change in customers
numbers
Cost per unit

10%

Market share

Market research

+5%

Market penetration

Market research

60%

Higher skill level

Skill ratio

+30%

Staff retention

Ranking survey

70%

Staff satisfaction

Survey rating

70%

Customer satisfaction

+25 million EGP

from new product
7.4 EGP
Enough for CTM
program execution
+10%

70%
75%

Task Five: 434 Words

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

8. Personal Development
Abraham Maslow defined personal development as the desire to become more and more
what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. Personal development
plans help to create a plan to reach our full potential and enhance personal skills (Dot
Connector (2012) [online], Available at: http://dotconnectorblog.com/personal-developmentplan-template/. [accessed 25 Aug 2012]).
PDP is the tactics that we should follow preceded by analysis and followed by the evaluation.
For the marketing manager, it is important to focus on self development and identify areas of
improvemnt and setting of personal development plans to be able to develop individuals and
teams for effective restructuring of the marketing function.
Gap analysis helped to understand strong personal skills and behaviors that already exists and
that are required using reflective elements that reflect on performance through Self awareness
approach by gathering information about current performance and then selecting areas of
interest for reflection and self evaluation and through problem solving approach by identifying
weaknesses and strengths.
Feedback data that focus on what are the skills and behaviors that are more or less effective in
achieving goals and objectives are gathered from the marketing director, and peers, appraisal
forms also helped to detect areas of competences and areas of weaknesses. Seeking
recommendations and suggestions from the boss to improve performance was also important
regarding specific duties.
8.1.

Personal Development Plan

CURRENT STATUS

Strengths
Areas of Improvement
Good relationship with customers, evidenced Marketing planning needs improvement in the
from customer surveys. Networking & team academic element, teaching skills needs
working and managing staff proved to be improvement to educate my team, work
excellent with high analytical and problem- procedures and technical knowledge still
solving skills. Information management has needs improvement, leadership skills are not
been improved with the ability to present reaching proficiency level. Sometimes,
information with self-confidence.
loosing temper and stressed with work load
GOALS
To change behavior, learn new skills to improve job performance and develop a full
working knowledge, thus can be promoted to a higher managerial level.
IMPLEMENTATION
Action Plan is prepared below for detailed implementation
STRATEGIES
Different methods can be used like e-learning that will help to increase academic
knowledge, but face-to-face methods like coaching, attending workshops, apply in short
and long courses are more effective in generating better results.
EVALUATION
Monitoring and evaluation at fixed points and towards the end to review the progress
achieved. Different tools can be used like interviews with the management, future appraisal
forms, questionnaire and focus group to analyze the behavior of the employer towards the
new personal development and consult about the positive features and drawbacks of the
personal development.

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

8.2.

Action Plan

Personal Development Action Plan

Areas of
Improvement

Actions

KPIs

Timing

Status

Responsible

Cost/
EGP

Marketing Planning

CIM Diploma

Ability to
produce
comprehensive
marketing plan

Throughout 2013

Not started

HR Manager

20,000

Stress Management

On-line course

Jan 2013

Not started

HR Assistant

3,000

Leadership Skills

Attend work
shop

Sept-Nov

On-going

HR Manager

2,000

Work Procedures
and Technical
Knowledge

Attend coaching
sessions

Oct-Nov
2012

Not started

Marketing
Director

1,000

Risk Management

Will be covered
in CIM diploma

Throughout 2013

Not started

HR Manager

Nil

Teaching Skills

Read book on
teaching skills

Sept 2012

Started

HR Assistant

300

Relieve stress
during work
load
Change
behavior and
attitude
Improved job
performance
and knowledge

Ability to
assess, evaluate
and mitigate
risks
Teaching team
new tasks and
assignments

Total

26,300

Task Six: 543 Words

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Appendix 1
Company Profile
Cairo Oil and Soap Co. is an Egyptian company with great heritage. It has been established in
1963 as a state owned company as a manufacturer of edible oil, ghee, soap and oils & fats
products. In year 2001 the company was privatized and listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange.
Afterwards, in July 2005, the shares were offered for sale and Consukorra acquired 80% of it.
The company has three production facilities located in key district areas in Greater Cairo, in
addition to the head office which is located in down town Cairo.
The three factories are:
El Ayat factory for the refinery of edible oil & for the production of vegetable ghee.
El Badrashain factory for oil extraction from seed and the production of animals fodder and
meals.
Ghamra factory for the production of luxury soap, toilet soap, laundry soap & liquid soap.
With more and more consumers turning to an increasingly active and fit lifestyle requiring the
use of healthy cooking oils, Cairo Oil and Soap Co. has developed a range of high quality
sunflower, corn and vegetable oils, vegetable ghee, pure ghee, margarine, butter, shortening and
specialty fats in keeping with the homemakers major concern is to keep the family healthy.
Our fats & oils are widely used in the manufacture of biscuits, fried foods, confectionery,
cheese, chocolate, bakery, ice cream, margarine, foodservices, spray drying, animal feed and
non food industrial uses such as cosmetics and paints.
The new management took charge of the company in mid 2005, the company has been
undergoing a major restructuring plan to turnaround the company from an inefficient one to a
renowned company with distinguished brands in the market.
The list of accomplishment and achievements that have taken place are numerous and cant all
be cited here. But among the most important realizations are:
Launch of several competitive brands in the market each being a distinguished product in
its category & progressively achieving an increasing market share.
Establishment of a new strong sales and distribution team to penetrate all areas and
governorates in Egypt.
Settlement of all the companys tax obligations amounting to EGP 44 MM for the years
from 1986 till 2005 and securing the resulting clearance certificates from the tax authority.
Registration for the companys assets, represented in four outstandingly located plots of
land.
Settlement of all short turn obligations and the introduction of the early retirement plan
aiming to reach an optimum number of employees.
Attaining a positive net income in 2009 for the first time after 3 years. On top of that gross
profit margin increased tremendously from -1% in 2005/6 to 14% in 2008/9

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Cairo Oil and Soaps vision is to become a leading FMCG company by offering a full range of
quality products, achieve sustainable profits and increase market share by delivering excellence
and by further developing products competencies, retain and develop people providing them
with the necessary trainings and tools as they are the most valuable asset. High customer focus,
with concern on customer equity and customer needs.
Further expansions and developments are continually scheduled to increase capacities, add new
product ranges such as margarine and shortening and upgrade available facilities. The company
is aiming to reach total sales of 200 million in 2012 and 300 million by 2013 versus the 160
million accomplished in year 2011. Cairo Oil & Soap Co., a purely Egyptian company is
committed to prosper and have a clear print in the industry with its high quality branded
products.
The ongoing turnaround process of Cairo Oil and Soap Company and with its team is a live
example of how successful management can really enhance performance, improve the
companys financial position & develop new competitive brands in the market.

Market Share
United
8%
IFFCO
10%

others
7%

Arma
25%

Cairo Oil &

Soap
20%
AFIA
30%

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Managing Marketing Assignment September 2012 - Membership Number: 13794189

Appendix 2
Marketing Department Structure

Marketing Department Structure

Marketing
Director

Marketing
Manager

Marketing
Executives

Product
Manager

Developers

Sales
Manager

Sales
Representatives

Research
Manager

Public Relation
Manager

MARKET
Analysts

Media Planners

The marketing function in Cairo Oil & Soap is undertaken by the marketing director
The marketing department within Cairo Oil & Soap in involved in different marketing activities
starting from situational analysis on the environment that the company operates, this is obtained
through conducting secondary and primary research and also Marketing planning and
development of the marketing mix that suits the wide range of products that we have and
implementation and delivering of marketing and promotional activities through the marketing
mix.
The marketing department although with limited number of people but it undertakes a lot of
promotional activities including above and below the line promotional activities which are
designed to communicate the product value to our customers such as T.V, Radio and newspaper
advertisements, participation in consumers exhibitions, sponsor one Cooking T.V. Program
and organize live cooking demonstrations in famous sports clubs and famous malls to increase
awareness of the company products to consumers.
Besides consumer programs, special programs are designed for the B2B market through
organizing industrial seminars and trade shows. Nevertheless, the marketing department
inefficiently control and measure the effectiveness of the marketing activities that are executed.
The marketing department is also responsible for the production of promotional materials like
brochures, catalogs, and advertising for print media, television, radio and the Internet. Some are
produced in-house, and some were done through professional advertising consultants to handle
certain aspects as the company doesnt own skilled expertise to undertake all the marketing
activities in-house.

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Terms of References

Author / Year

Reference

Sherratt, A. (ed) (2009)

The Official CIM Course Book: Managing Marketing,

Elsevier, Oxford

Sherratt, A. (2012)

Study Text: Managing Marketing, BPP Learning Media LTD,

London

Dot Connector (2012)

(Dot
Connector
(2012)
[online],
Available
at:
http://dotconnectorblog.com/personal-development-plantemplate/.[accessed 25 Aug 2012]).
(Timneufeld
(2011)
[online],
Available
at:http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/2011/10/why-i-thinksteve-jobs-was-a-great-leader-but-would-make-a-terriblepastor.html [accessed 26 Aug 2012]).

Timneufeld (2011)

29