Question 1

Marketing is typically seen as the task of creating, promoting and delivering goods and services to
consumers and businesses. In fact, marketing involves various types of entities. Use relevant
examples from different industries to discuss the categories of industries or entities that marketing
professional are responsible for marketing.

Marketing is the process of promoting the trade of goods, services and/or capital for the
purpose of providing full benefit to the customer. From a social point of view, marketing is a
connection between the material needs of a population and its economic reaction trends.
Marketing addresses these needs and wants to do so through both trade mechanisms and
long-term partnerships. Marketing can also be seen as an operational activity and a collection
of processes for forming, providing and transmitting value to consumers and maintaining
customer relationships in ways that support the company and its shareholders. (Grönroos
1994)

Marketing professionals market 10 main types of entities, these include Goods, Services,
Events, Experiences, Persons, Places, Properties, Organizations, Information and Ideas. We
are going to explain what these entities do and also provide practical examples.

Goods
Physical goods are products that are tangible in nature, and can be touched. Physical goods
that can be manufactured, or produced are the major items among those that can be marketed,
and constitute the bulk of production and marketing efforts. Examples include cars,
refrigerators, computers, music systems including fresh, canned and bagged food products.

Services
Services are intangible entities that involve performing some kind of act or function for or on
behalf of the customer. In most developed economies such as the US, the production of
services constitutes the majority of GDP. Examples include banking and insurance, medical
and health, education, hotels, hospitality and restaurants, hairdressers, legal firms, accounting
services.

Events
People pay to attend events such as concerts, theatre and various performance shows.
Organizers market and promote these events through various media and are organized with a
motive for financial gain. The most famous ones are the large, global sporting events for
examples, such as the Olympics, the World Cup, tennis and golf tournaments, boxing
matches and so on.

Experiences
By integrating many products and services that a business provides, it may create an
exceptional experience for its customers. Many businesses in the vacation and leisure
industries are seeking to provide an experience. Good examples here would be theme parks
such as Disneyland and Tomorrowland, or an exotic cruise.

Persons
A person can become a brand through marketing efforts of cultivating the attention and
preference of a target market towards that person. Although celebrities such as actors, artists,
musicians and sports personalities may be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking
about marketing a person. You can also create a brand for a CEO, successful lawyers, doctors
and many other professionals. Well known celebrities such as Madonna, Kanye West and Jeff
Bezos are examples.

Places
Place marketing includes promotional campaigns intended to draw tourists to a specific
location by enhancing the area’s or location’s image. Each City, Town or Country has its own
direction at which their promotion or marketing is focused, such as being business or
economic hubs, shopping capitals or even exotic leisure hotspots etc. National tourism
agencies, economic development professionals and real estate agents play a big role in this
sector. Cape Town Tourism is a prime example of a marketer in this sector.

Properties
Properties can be financial property such as cash, bonds, mutual funds and stocks or physical
properties such as land, real estate and commodities. Marketing is essential in this category
as properties are bought and sold on a regular basis. Properties are of contractual rights or
ownership claims. Real estate brokers or agents deal with buyers or sellers of property, or
purchase and sell residential or commercial real estate. Investment firms and Banks market
securities to both institutional and private investors. Companies such as Remax, Rawson,
Investec and Coronation are examples.

Organisations
Organizations market through positive Corporate image and brand building. This is a drive to
influence consumers and the general public to appreciate the aims and initiatives of the
company, embrace their goods / services or participate by promoting positive word of mouth.
This is also to acquire potential customers, business associates and good sentiment from the
general population. LG’s “Life’s Good” slogan can be seen as the brand suggesting that its
products are high quality, convenient and innovative.

Information
Information can be produced, packaged, marketed and distribution. Books, firms, schools,
colleges and universities produce and distribute information for a price to its customers,
which are students, parents, readers and individuals wanting to learn new skills etc. Examples
include Mancosa and Get-smarter.

Ideas
An offering, whether it is a product or a service, is in reality the medium for selling a concept
or an idea. In addition, we note that social marketing focuses on spreading ideas for the good
of certain improvements and social behaviour. Examples include campaigns and hashtags
such as "SaveTheRhinos" and "StopGBV".

Question 2
Work specialization allow managers to break complex tasks into smaller, more precise tasks that
individual employees can complete. Briefly explain the evolution of specialisation and outline the
reasons for specialisation of work.

Adam Smith titled his economics book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations, and his concern with explaining wealth is apparent from the very first page.
He shows the importance of specialization or division of labour by recognizing the benefit of
making each worker in a pin factory focus on a single phase of manufacturing rather than
manufacturing a pin from the beginning to the end. By specialization, workers may become
more skilled, use equipment that maximize their productive forces, and prevent the endless
waste of time. These benefits are very evident, but the efficiency gain is much greater than
one can expect. According to Smith, by specializing in different tasks, ten pin-makers will
create about forty-eight thousand pins a day. But if either of them wanted to execute every
role in pin output, Smith doubted that they could produce 20 pins a day, or two hundred of
them. (Adam 1776)

Phases of the Evolution of Specialisation as Business Grows

Phase 1
The entrepreneur starts out with a focus on creating a product and a market for his product.
Much of the operations such as production, marketing, sales and administration of the
business finances are done by the entrepreneur as a Sole Proprietor. As the business starts to
grow the entrepreneur will be unable to efficiently handle everything themselves.

Phase 2
More orders are coming in for the product, and the Sole Proprietor has less available time to
focus on every aspect of the business, and requires assistance. A part-time bookkeeper is
employed to assist with the financial administration of the business. In this phase
specialisation of jobs has begun.

Phase 3
In this phase, strong leadership is required as the entrepreneur steers the business in the
desired direction through effective management. The owner now hires the bookkeeper full
time, also hires a person to supervise production, another to focus on sales and marketing.
However, the owner is still the central point as he has to overlook everything still, and as the
organization further grows, this becomes more difficult.

Phase 4
The business in this phase is focusing on decentralization, and this creates departments.
Department specialists (managers) have subordinates who report to them. The business now
has departments such as Finance, Human Resources, Marketing and Production.

The main reasons for specialisation of work include:

Worker Efficiency (Individual Ability):
  A worker who is focused on doing the same tasks repeatedly becomes better skilled
and very efficient at performing this task. As the saying says “Practice makes
perfect”.
Reduced Transfer Time:
 Work which requires workers do to multiple tasks or jobs, has a disadvantage as
workers lose time while switching between tasks/jobs.
Specialised Equipment:
 Specialised equipment allows tasks to be completed more efficiently.
Reduced Training:
 Due to specialised training only focusing on a training on a specific task, the training
costs are reduced.
Coordination:
 It becomes simpler to coordinate individual tasks and each worker knows exactly
what is required from them.

References
 Kotler & Keller 2009
 Kotler, P. and Keller K.L., 2006, Marketing Management Twelfth Edition, Prentice
Hall, New Delhi
 Greiner, Larry E. "Evolution and revolution as organizations grow." Harvard
Business Review, vol. 76, no. 3, 1998, p. 55+. Accessed 21 Sept. 2020.
 Specialization and Wealth
 Dwight R. Lee
 Saturday, August 1, 1998
 https://fee.org/resources/specialization-and-wealth/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
 Grönroos, Christian. "From Marketing Mix to Relationship Marketing: Towards a
Paradigm Shift in Marketing," Management Decision, vol. 32, no. 2, 1994, pp. 4–20.
 Du Toit, Erasmus and Strydom (2013) Introduction to Business Management, 9th Edition, Oxford
 University Press: Southern Africa
 Smit, P.J. & Cronjé, D.J. (2002) Management Principles, 3rd Edition Cape Town: Juta & Co.
 Robbins, S.P. (1997) Managing Today. London: Prentice Hall.
 Mondy, R.W., Sharplin, A. & Premeaux, S.R. (1991) Management Concepts, Practices and Skills.
Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.