MBA Marketing Job Description
Brand Management
The scope of a brand manager's function varies from company to
company, but the core job function is to search for the most
productive way to build long-term profitability for a product. How
you reach this goal can vary widely between consumable and durable
goods. Traditional brand management focuses on consumable goods with
a short repeat purchase cycle, in which sales respond rapidly to
changes in price, product, packaging, distribution and promotion.
The typical career path for an MBA is to enter as an assistant
product manager and move up to brand manager after three to five
years.
A brand management team shares the ultimate responsibility for a
particular product. Brand management involves developing a strategic
direction for a brand based on what consumers want. It is not just
about lowering price or creating commercials, although they are
elements of a strategic plan. Rather, managing a brand means finding
a way to deliver value to consumers. Brand managers lead
cross-functional teams to achieve the goals outlined in annual brand
plans. Whether it's managing a spending budget or convincing upper
management through numeric analysis to "size-up" a package size to
boost sales, everything you do funnels towards the goal of selling
more units, thus making more profit for the company and putting
smiles on shareholders' faces.
Although the needs of a particular brand and product often dictate
the level of exposure you have to different issues, one thing all
brand managers have in common is a fast-paced schedule. Seldom does
a day go by where you won't be running from meeting to meeting and
visiting employees from Legal, Packaging, Finance, Market Research,
Consumer Affairs, Operations, Public Relations, and Research and
Development, among others. Given the broad exposure to so many
aspects of business and the supply chain, these positions are often
general managers.
High-Tech Marketing
High-tech marketing is a dynamic industry, with companies often
racing to unveil a new development before its competitors. Even
within the same product group, high-tech marketers must manage rapid
introductions and phase-outs of different products, develop
strategies for ongoing support of older products already purchased
by consumers, and differentiate their services or equipment from
those of the rapidly proliferating competition. In certain product
categories, high-tech marketing resembles consulting, and some
companies actually have consulting business units (Sprint and AT&T,
for example).
Within high-tech marketing, you also have new product development,
integrated business solutions, and Internet/intranet business
solution and ongoing product groups.
Services Marketing
Services marketing presents a number of challenges for a
marketing professional because services are intangible. Services are
produced and consumed simultaneously, with people being a key part
of the services "product." Service marketers must understand the
tangibles and intangibles of high-quality service, not to mention
distribution channels and methods, pricing decisions and promotions.
Careers in this arena tend to be fluid, allowing a great deal of
opportunity to gain diverse experience.
Business Development
This career is exactly what it sounds like: figuring out how to
build or develop a business. You can find business development jobs
in all industries-at startups as well as at established,
bricks-and-mortar companies. The description of tasks varies
depending on the companies' business models and dates of
establishment.
The objective of business development professionals is to expand the
market reach, revenue, or membership base of their companies in ways
that make the most of their companies' resources and capabilities.
Biz dev executes a company's strategy by "doing deals" with
complementary businesses.
Exactly what that means varies from company to company as well.
Given the growing interest of MBAs in these types of positions,
companies will often title a position "business development" to
attract MBAs, so be sure you ask probing questions to determine the
nature of the job and to ensure it is not simply a sales job. Also,
be sure to clarify the department to which the position reports
(finance, sales, marketing, etc.) and the stability of the company
to ensure the opportunity is as it appears.
Market Research
Market research is the art and science of gathering, compiling
and analyzing data to provide a company's management with
information needed to make decisions on the design, distribution,
and pricing of products and services. The information may be used to
determine the advisability of adding new lines, opening new branches
or otherwise diversifying the company's operations. During the past
two decades, companies have also made significant investments to
understand how customer satisfaction impacts their buying decisions.
E-Commerce Marketing
With the rapid expansion of the Worldwide Web in the 1990s came
an interesting phenomenon of a new sales channel that needed to be
added to the marketing and distribution mix. As you might expect,
e-commerce marketers focus on using the Web to market and sell a
company's products and services. With the leading position in the
e-commerce area, there are many opportunities to explore and
understand the ramifications of this continuously changing marketing
channel. More job description on marketing:
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