List of Careers

Retailing involves selling products and services to consumers for their personal or family use. It was first started in the US from where ‘Macy’ has also opened an outlet in India (in Mumbai) in collaboration with Bharti Enterprises to sell cell phones. Service providers like dentists, hotels, hair salon and online stores are also retailers.

Many businesses are both wholesalers and retailers, because they sell both to consumers and building contractors. Other businesses are both manufacturers and retailers.

Regardless of other functions these businesses perform, they are still retailers when they interact with the final users of the product or services.

Retailing is important in today’s world because they play a vital role in the business world by linking the manufacturer and consumer directly. This has added value to products and it has become easier for manufacturers to sell and consumers to buy. Had it not been for the retailer, it would have been very costly for the consumer to buy say ‘a bar of chocolate or soap’, a sweater, etc. Similarly it would not be cost effective either for the manufacturer too to search for individual customers to sell their products. Therefore retailers bring multitudes of manufactures and consumers to a single point and get business done.

Retailers have salespeople who can answer queries of customers, offer credit and also display goods so that the consumer can have a variety to choose from. In addition retailers may provide extra services like personal shopping, gift wrapping to delivery that increases the value of product and service to customer.

Retailing in some form will always be necessary though internet marketing has changed the form of shopping. Internet has made it possible for manufacturers to sell their products directly to the consumers. Online retailers bring together assortment of products to consumers.

However retailers will always be in demand for personal services like hair dressing. Moreover customers often want to see and touch products before purchasing them or they want the product immediately and do not want it to be shipped. In many cases the experience of visiting the retailer is an important part of purchase. The retailer has to make shopping for the customer pleasurable to ensure that they come back.

Product management is an organizational function within a company dealing with planning, forecasting and marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product’s life cycle.

Product management involves both product development and product marketing which are two different yet complementary efforts with the objective to increase sales revenue, market share and profit margins. The role of product management covers many activities from strategic to tactical and varies according to the organizational structure of the company. It can exist as a function on its own or can be related to the department of marketing and engineering of a company.

The main focus of product management is to drive new superior and unique products into the market that would deliver a unique benefits and superior value to the customers which in the long term lead to product profitability.

Depending on the size and history of a company the function of product management has a variety of function and role. It may employ a product manager whose main responsibility is profit and loss (P & L) and that is the key metric for evaluating his performance. In some companies product management is the hub of many other activities around the product. In some others it is just to bring the product in the market and to monitor and manage it in the market.

Product management bridges the gap between the engineering team and the commercial team. It plays an interdisciplinary role. The product manager translates the business objective for a product by marketing and sales into engineering requirements. Conversely they can explain the limitation and capabilities of the finished product back to marketing and sales. That is why product managers are sometimes allowed one or two direct reports called change managers to manage operational task and take new initiative.

Since Product management is both product development and product marketing.

Product development identifies new product candidate, gathering customer’s voice, defining product requirement and engineering them within the company. It is also building product road maps, releasing them in the market within the scheduled time and ensuring that they are within the price margin of the majority of the customers.

Product marketing includes considering product life cycle, differentiate it with other products, naming and branding them, its promotion, gathering customer’s feedback and enabling launching of new products to the market. Of course monitoring the competition is vital for product survival.

Market research is any effort to gather information about the market or customer. It is a very important component of business strategy. The term is sometimes confused with marketing research which is about the processes of marketing while market research is concerned mainly about the market.

It is a key factor to get advantage over competitors in the market and provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, size and competition. It includes both social and opinion research and is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals and organization using statistical and analytical methods and techniques of applied social science to gain insight or support decision making.

Market research was first put into formal practice in the 1920s in the US, as an offshoot of advertising boom. Advertisers began to realize the importance of demographics revealed by sponsorship of different radio programs.

Market research for business planning is to know what people need or believe and how they act. Once the research is complete it can be used to determine how to market the product/service. Questionnaires focus discussion and surveys are some of the instruments used for market research. For starting up a business one needs to have some market information which is a part of market research. Through market information one can know the price of different commodities in the market as well as the supply and demand situation. This information can be gathered from different sources, varieties and formats as well as sources and varieties that can be obtained to make business work.

A proper market research needs market segmentation, which is dividing the market or population into different sub-groups with similar motivation. The segmentation can be geographic, demographic, techno graphic, psychographic or personality differences. In business to business (B2B) segmentation it may termed as firm graphic differences.

While market researches the first thing to know is the market trend. It is very difficult to estimate the market size if one is starting something completely new. In this case one will have to derive figures from potential customers or customer segment. Besides information about the target market one need also to gather information about the competitors and other related products.

Advertisement is the most exciting, ingenious, colorful and resourceful way of ‘public relation’. In some form, however primitive, advertisement has always been there to attract customers. It’s more a science in today’s modern world than a form of art. There are mainly two kinds of advertisement:

a) Informative, and

b) Persuasive and competitive

Both these kinds have to be overlapped to increase the marketing of a product.

Public relation is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its public. The public relation department of an organization sells the image of the organization, while the publicity agencies sell the company products.

It’s here that advertisement and public relation get interlinked. In the public of an organization the advertising agencies like print media & electronic media play a major role.

A business house may use different ways of external public relation to advertise its product.

1. It may reach out to the consumer directly by conducting opinion poll, sending out questionnaires or by providing information and at times announcing awards and prizes on purchase.

2. It may conduct exhibition or trade fairs to attract customers.3. Big industrial houses invite the public like colleges and school children to visit their plant and at times even give gifts to visitors.

3. Organizing seminars and conferences is a popular way of advertising and building the image of an industry or business house.

4. Sponsoring games and sports, cultural programs is another method of the public relation department to project the image of an organization. Some industrial houses have their own cultural centers and portrait galleries.

Modern age advertisement has led to unprecedented growth of big business houses and industries. It is not plainly concerned with selling products, but displaying high minded sentiments about life, the world of business in general. It may be ‘prestige advertisement’, ‘company advertisement’, reputation advertisement’ or ‘Institutional advertisement’. Display advertisement improves the image of a company, classified advertisement helps in bringing two parties together.

Professionals in the field of marketing have several directions to boost their career. Since marketing is comprised of many facets and activities, a career in marketing has a lot of opportunities, but the common denominator of those opportunities is the sense of ownership over the product and the services. There is a necessity to understand the need of the customer and then translate those needs into the communication of your marketing needs. That marketing communication can be done in several ways that is why a career in marketing opens several doors as a profession.

Marketing Professionals have to take a ‘generic’ product or service and associate it with a brand name. Marketing can be defined as the intermediary function between product, development and sales. Since it is a store house of advertising, public relation, media planning, market research, product management and much more, job prospects in the field of marketing can be in the above mentioned areas.

A key part in marketing career is to ensure that consumer look beyond the price and function of a product and service. It is here that a professional in the job of a market researcher plays vital role. He has to study the preferences and constrains of the target group of consumer or the market niche corresponding the brand. Apart from the job of a marketing researcher the other opportunities as marketing professional may help in finding a job in the following categories.

· Brand management

· Advertising

· Promotion

· Public Relation

Brand management is the application of technique to a specific product, product line or brand. It was first started by Proctor & Gamble. It concentrates on consumer marketing.

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade the audience, viewer, readers or listeners to take some action with respect to products, ideas or services.

Promotion is the one of the four aspects of a promotional mix, which are- advertising, personal selling and publicity. They can be either targeted at the consumer, staff or sales channels.

Public Relation is the action of a corporation, store or government individual to promote good will between it and the consumer. It is the communication between the company and public. It includes reaching the public personally, through media or shows or conferences. This is done by the public relation officer of a company.

So do take a degree in marketing!

As most of the MBA colleges in India and abroad offer courses in Management, to do a special course in marketing one has to try to get admitted to a MBA college to get professionally trained for it. You can select the special programme before the admission; it becomes easier to prepare for the entrance to the college.

To get admission to any marketing college in India, it is essential to be a graduate in any discipline having a minimum of 50% as an aggregate to appear for the examination. The student should have at a 3-year bachelor degree.

Though it is advisable for commerce graduates to take up the marketing profession, the area of interest depends on the individual.

Students aspiring for admission into a marketing college (MBA College) in India have to get through the CAT (Common Admission Test), MAT, or XAT which is conducted at almost all the major cities of India.

The courses are usually 2-3yrs programme; however some institutions like Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar also offer a 1-year diploma course of executive MBA for working professionals.

The fees structure depends on the college. In India the MBA colleges are categorized in three classes- A, B, and C. ‘A’ class colleges like IIM has a fee structure of 12lakhs. While for XLRI a ‘B’ class college one has to spend from 5-8lakhs. The ‘C’ classes colleges charge within 2-6lakhs for a two year programme. If a student qualifies CAT, MAT or XAT with good points, he or she can avail a bank loan to complete his studies.

The scenario abroad is a bit different for students aspiring to go abroad. The eligibility for students is a postgraduate degree or a technical degree like engineering. Students have to get through exams like GMAT& TOFEL. Preference is given to students with a minimum of two years work experience. The fees structure varies from $15000 to $52 000. For students qualifying for the exam, a scholarship at times is made available for students. International or foreign banks in India do provide loans, but this is done only after checking out securities that can be provided by the students.

With the intention of becoming a world class marketing professional, qualifying the examination will not only give a boost to ones career but also give one a chance to earn a lot as a marketing professional.

Marketing professionals have a varied and vast area to work on. In today’s modern world everything sells, so too resumes. Job seekers both fresher and experienced take the help of ‘resume writers’ to project their profile and make it attractive for the employers. A resume writer not only writes resumes but at times have to market it too. However some job portals use marketing professionals to market the resume written by resume writers.

Like all other products marketing professionals have to first chalk out their target customers /buyers/prospects. That is to whom are they going to sell their resumes. Then again jobseekers may be from varied industry like health, IT, education, technical and so on. Each aspirant would have an expectation of his own. So highlighting the technicalities of various resume buyers have to be handled by an expert in resume writing.

One obvious area would be offer free resume critique via the alumni services of the various schools. Marketing professionals need to consider the most common ways target customers link to each other. Technology off course will play a vital role here. It would be best to contact the consumers through this technology and answer their queries, like creating a forum at your website where questions can be posed. For example naukri.com sends job alerts matching a candidate’s profile at the same time gives some samples of written resumes that the viewer may go through and if required hire their resume writers to write resumes for them.

A new company in its nascent stage should always look for strategic partnership like who else is trying to capture the attention of this powerful group? They may be financial companies, apparel retailers, spas etc.

Also many of the resume organization have a very big networking and sub contracting business. Resume marketing professional may link up with some resume writers who are likely to get more enquiries. In collaboration both can offer services in resume writing to non niche clients.

Once a group is selected they have to convinced about the capability of the site and make the consumer feel that they too care for them as jobseekers, by giving them resumes that would highlight their skills as a jobseeker. Offering holistic service make the customers visit the site time and again.

There are a number of Management colleges in India and abroad that offer degree courses in marketing.

Some top MBA colleges in India offering Marketing courses are:

- India Institute of Management (Ahmadabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Bangalore & Kozhikode)

-Management Development Institute (Gurgaon)

-Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University

-Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (Mumbai)

- Institute of Management Technology (Ghaziabad)

-International Management Institute (New Delhi)

- FORE School of Management (New Delhi)

- Xavier Labour Research Institute (Jamshedpur)

- SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (Mumbai)

There also some good top ranking B-schools based abroad offering marketing courses, like:

1. London Business School- UK

2. University of Pennsylvania- Wharton-USA

3. Harvard Business School- USA

4. Stanford University GSB-USA

5. Insead- France/ Singapore

6. IE Business School- Spain

7. Columbia Business School – USA

8. MIT Sloan School of Management-USA

9. University of Chicago – Booth- USA

10. Hong Kong UST Business School

All the colleges listed above in India provide adequate study environment and facilities. For example IIM, Bangalore has a very good infra structure. The classrooms are spacious and well equipped with audio and video facility. International standard discussion room and well equipped library having more than a million books, periodicals, journals, working papers, online database and magazine which is common in all the IIMs. The college spreads over an area of fifty thousand sq.ft. The well experienced and highly qualified faculty is an added bonus to this management school. It admits around 150 candidates each year who get admitted after qualifying the CAT, GMAT, PGSEM and facing an interview process as well. The institute has about ten hostels both for students as well as executives visiting the institution. Shops and STD/ISD are also available in the hostel premises.

More than a hundred companies from both India and Abroad come to recruit from these top Indian management colleges.

MBA schools like London Business school’s facilities are more aristocratic. The college is situated in the heart of the city which looks onto the lake at Regent’s Park. The college provides well equipped classrooms, seminar rooms, function rooms, lecture theatres, libraries, IT services, Fitness center, accommodation and food inside the campus. It also arranges hotel rooms for visiting students, faculties and guests.

One only has to get into these colleges to metamorphose into a professional.

A business will not survive if its products do not reach the customer. It is here that the need for a marketing professional arises. A marketing professional reaches out to the customer after going through a number of critical processes of meeting people, advertising, research, public relation and customer relation. A specialized course – MBA in marketing is available for students who want to specialize as marketing professional. A special kind of training is provided in this course. Firms nowadays are keen to employ marketing professional to increase their business avenues and profit.

Marketing is considered as a highly competitive field as different companies are promoting their products from needle to airplanes through marketing professionals only. Therefore a course in marketing gives an edge to your career.

All top MBA colleges in India have almost the same curriculum which includes the training of operation, economy, strategy, finance and leadership skill.

MBA marketing courses teach subjects like:

· Consumer behavior

· Cost volume and profits

· Consumer audience

· Market research

· Analysis of demand

· Marketing campaigns

· Strategic planning

· Advertising

· Market study

· Consumer relational

A person wanting to pursue a career in marketing must have the skill to impress and convince people. Marketing skills can be categorized under different heads:

· People skill

· Sales skill

· Analytical skill

· Communication skill

· Initiative

· Creative ability

· Ability to integrate ideas

Benefits of a MBA in marketing are that a person can use it in any sector of the economy. Commercial, education, government and non-profiting organization and industries are like to consider marketing professional for advertising and selling their products. With a degree in marketing management one can find jobs as marketing managers and directors in different fields like sales, corporate communication, public relation, product developers , market researchers and promotion specialist.

There are different types of marketing courses available both in India and abroad. For example Kaplan, US provides two types of online degree course in marketing:

1. Marketing and sales management degree.

2. Internet marketing degree.

The first type focuses more on traditional type of marketing. The second type focuses on the forms and techniques of promoting both business and product through the internet. It focuses on search engine marketing, web display advertisement and rich media interactive advertisement, email, blog, viral and affiliate marketing.

Both types are integrated part of marketing process.

No matter how great your product is, it’s marketing that determines the sales. To build a successful business/company you need a great product. However that great product is not the end, it should be properly marketed to be a product of demand in the market. There are ways to help a product to be successful in the market:

Do pick the right target market – some starters may have a product the appeals or solves the problem of a broad segment of consumers than others, but they may not be able to reach all of them at the same time. Some customers will be more ready to buy the product than the others. Therefore it is essential to research your market and pick a niche before going too far.

Determine the best way to reach your potential market. When a good product is created after a proper market research, the notion is that “if you build, they will come” cliché doesn’t usually work. So what should be the next step? Try to reach the potential market.

Stay alert and be ready to adapt, even when your business is growing by leaps and bounds. When you make changes you get prepared to have a public opinion for your new launches.

Continuous improvement in strategies and corresponding marketing is necessary for survival in the market.

Don’t just believe the industry gurus and experts. Do your homework. Ask your potential buyers what they will buy and understands their needs.

Don’t put all your marketing eggs in one basket. Try different ways to reach out to your customers and try to find out what works best.

Don’t believe your own press and become complacent when you have achieved success. The market could change faster than one can expect. Be prepared to change and update your marketing strategies.

Take your time to create a better market for business.