Page | 1

Page | 2
Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................4

TASK- 1: Explain the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other functional units
of an organization..............................................................................................................5

Marketing........................................................................................................................5

Concept of marketing, including current and future trends............................................5

External environment impacts upon marketing activity.................................................6

Critical analysis and evaluation of the key elements of the marketing function and
their interrelation with other functional units of ASOS PLC...........................................8

Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in B2C and B2B concept.....11

Marketing as a business function and interrelationship between other functional unit in

wider organizational context........................................................................................12

TASK-2: Compare ways in which organizations use elements of the marketing mix
(7Ps) to achieve overall business objectives...................................................................14

Designing a strategic marketing plan that tactically applies the use of the 7Ps to
achieve overall marketing objectives for ASOS PLC...................................................14

Compare the ways in which ASOS PLC applies the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives........................................................16

TASK-3: Develop and evaluate a basic marketing plan..................................................18

Importance and value of marketing plan......................................................................18

Link between Marketing plan, objectives and strategies.............................................19

Production and evaluation of a basic marketing plan for ASOS PLC..........................19

Evaluating and monitoring marketing plans using control and evaluation techniques 23

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................25

Page | 3
Page | 4
Introduction
Marketing acts as a crucial tool in modern business organizations involving
understanding the marketplace, consumer demand, creating profitable relation,
customer related market strategy and giving quality goods and services to customers.
Modern businesses prioritize customer relationship and making an innovative approach
towards marketing strategy in business. Awareness of marketing essentials are now
high in current market scenario all over the world. This report is based on a small case
study which portrays a business organization named ASOS PLC headquartered in
London, England, UK established in 2000 by Nick Robertson, Andrew Regan and
Quentin Griffiths. It is an online fashion and cosmetic retailer that sells over 850 brands
products ranging from clothing, shoes, beauty items and accessories. It follows B2C
market structure holding almost 4000 employees with annual revenue of £2.573 billion
till 2019(ASOS, 2020). This high revenue is possible due to consumer focused
approach of the company towards its market. This report provides information about the
roles of marketing and their interrelation with other function of business organization
then it compares ways of marketing mix in the company to achieve organizational goals
and objectives and finally a basic marketing plan for ASOS PLC.

Page | 5
TASK- 1: Explain the role of marketing and how it interrelates
with other functional units of an organization
Marketing function helps to identify and source potentially profitable products and
services for the market and helps to promote it. Functions that are more commonly
found in every business organizations are market research, product plan, development
process, sales and promotion, customer service and finance (Babin, 2019).

Marketing
Marketing is the concept of marketing mix, a framework that highlights the offering
decision that matches with customer needs. Marketing is not only related with sales
promotion. Marketing is one of crucial department which includes market place
research, product or service design, understanding consumer behavior, research for
new products etc.(Kotler et al., 2012). In a short, in creates the link between customers
demand and business. The concept of marketing keep changing as the global trend for
business keeps changing. This presentation will help us to understand the current
marketing trends as well as future trends and role and responsibilities of a marketing
manager in organizations. There will be some clear discussion that how marketing is
interrelated with other depart to run the business smoothly.

Concept of marketing, including current and future trends.

Business environment are always changing because of globalization and new
technology use. So marketing experts come forward with different concepts of
marketing to cope up with the change. We can divide marketing concept in five major
segments. This concept was developed with the concern of present and future trends.

 Production concept – This concept was developed during industrial revulsion

when business moved to technology use thus the production capacity increased.
So business organizations tried to capture the market with huge production and
sell them at comparatively low price. So, this concept was production based.

 Product concept: When technology became available for almost all business
customers started to have a wide range of products in market thus they became

Page | 6
 more concerned about the products. Customer started to find the value for
money and innovative products with new solution(Alexander et al., 2017). So the
businesses moved to product concept with a view to make useful and innovative
products for attracting the customers.

 Selling concept: In this concept business organizations started to push selling

their products. Using aggressive promotion in the market they used to attract the
customers.

 Marketing concept: Due to globalization people became aware of product

knowledge. People became more aware of products and brand value. So
businesses now focus on establishing the brand value with unique features in the
product and sell their products only to the targeted market.

 Social marketing concept: In this concept business organizations decide their

market in different segment concerning the demand of the segments. In this
concept, business organization not only rely on that customers will choose their
brand but they focus on segments that how the can reach their brand to the
customers with their preferences(Alexander et al., 2017).. For example,
InterContinental Hotel Group offers a wide variety of brand hotels to capture
customer range from luxury to mid-level.

External environment impacts upon marketing activity

Marketing activity is intensively affected by external environment. Understanding the
global trend, new legal laws, technology innovation, political conditions where we are
trying to expand the business, employment availability in the area etc. are included in
external environment that affects marketing activity.

1. Political factors:

These factors are vital to run the operations smoothly because if a country’s political
situation is better than any business can prosper(Warner, 2016). For example, if there
is a ban in importing makeup item in a country then ASOS cannot enter to sell its

Page | 7
products to that country. If BREXIT happens then the market structure and distribution
system may change which might negatively affect the business (FERGUSON, 2017).

2. Economic factors:

Economic factors includes Economic growth, exchange rates. Interest rates, inflation,
disposable income, unemployment rate and other factors. Economic situation
encourages foreign trade, and tax income (Warner, 2016).

Such as, ASOS PLC owns a great market share as it is one of the largest online public
limited company in the world by which they can enter into any market due to its
reliability and popularity.

3. Socio-cultural factors:

Social factors include population, growth rate, age, career, attitudes, safety emphasis,
health consciousness, lifestyle attitudes and cultural barriers (Treverton and Ghez,
2012).

ASOS is influenced by some social factors. For example, growth of young generation
with higher purchasing power and spending ability in a country attracted ASOS to
expand their business in foreign market though local market and high import duties may
hinder the expansion of ASOS PLC to operate business there.

4. Technological factors:

Technological factor includes Technological incentives, innovation, automation, R&D

activities, transformation and technological awareness (Warner, 2016). For example,
ASOS uses Artificial Intelligence that controls user’s buying information which helps to
maintain a customer database.

5. Legal factors:

Legal factors includes Anti-trust laws, employment law, discrimination law copyright and
patent law, health and safety law and all other protection laws made for citizens and
foreigners of a country (Treverton and Ghez, 2012). Legal factors defines the way how
the customers will behave and how the business will operate under the law of a country.

Page | 8
 6. Environmental factors:

Environmental factor includes weather, climatic change, population, environmental

policies and pressure from NGOs which affects many industrial advancement such as
travel and tourism, agriculture and production, and insurance (Warner, 2016).
Environmental factors may also affect the operations of the business in any country.
Business must follow the environmental policies while doing business in the country.
ASOS is an Online company as a result it cannot affect the environment so it can
partially do some environmental work to create a brand value.

Critical analysis and evaluation of the key elements of the marketing

function and their interrelation with other functional units of ASOS
PLC
Overview of marketing processes.

Marketing is a collection of tasks. Every organization some stage when they are in the
marketing function. These series of task interdependent and the whole thing is known
as marketing process. The marketing process is given below:

 Mission Establishment – At first and mission should be established to

start the marketing process. Missions are short term goals to achieve the
future vision and goal.

 Situation Analysis – In this stage organizations analyze their place in

market and find their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It
is known as SWOT analysis. Situation analysis helps the organization to
make realistic decisions.

 Setting Marketing strategy – In this stage organization set strategies

according to the situation analysis. They make marketing plan to capture
the new opportunities and reduce the threat.

Page | 9
  Marketing mix decision – In marketing mix there are 7Ps (Product, price,
place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence). Marketing
manager make sure that all these elements are being properly used in the
marketing process.

 Implementation and evaluation – In this stage the plan is executed to

achieve the mission. And marketing manager evaluate the progress of the
plan.

Marketing functions comprises various functions such as advertising, distribution,

finance and many others. These activities come under the process of marketing process
and the key elements of marketing functions are explained below:

 Research: the business organization market research has a crucial role which is
considered to be the most important marketing function as without it no business
can become successful. Research helps to get valuable information that
concerns business process factors. It not only provides information of market
also about logistics, finance, raw materials, resources and other prospects of
business.
 Strategy: after collecting valuable information and data from research, this
information are processed to analyze possible strengths and weakness among
business operation. Strategies give valuable guidance to have a fair competition
in the market and succeed in the harsh market environment (Jain, 2013).
Strategies are made through analyzing realistic possibilities and outcomes
measured through market research.
 Planning: after completing research and strategy process planning is done.
Marketing department does much work such as financial planning, forecasting
sales, communication and distribution and other factors of business. Planning
department utilizes specific timeline to plan out important strategies for
converting goals into success.
 Tactics: the final key role of marketing is tactics which are short term marketing
plans which are implemented to attract target customers which involves limited

Page | 10
 offers to create promotional boost in the marketing plan such as, ASOS can do
buy one get one free or half the price offers.

Above mentioned points are the analysis and evaluation of the key elements of
marketing functions. The interrelations of key marketing functions with other functional
units of ASOS are explained below;

Marketing functions are linked with other functional units of business organizations. An
example can be provided for better understanding; finance department of ASOS is
connected with marketing department. The marketing functions need economic
resources for planning, research, implementation and evaluation of market strategies in
ASOS which is provided by the finance department. Marketing function also cannot
work without good communication and sorting with the finance department members.
For better marketing it need to be connected with other departments too. Such as,
marketing department need accurate information about the product description from the
production department regarding products and services, human resource or staff from
HR department and logistics from distribution channel and many more (MCDONALD
and WILSON, 2011). These works of marketing department are also backed by other
departments of the company. Such as, HR polices need to be matched and coped with
marketing department to increase sales also production team has to provide information
of product and services to create accurate plan for ASOS. So, marketing functions are
interrelated with all other functional units of ASOS.

Page | 11
Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in B2C and
B2B concept
Marketing management can be referred as the process of planning and carrying out
different concept of marketing which involves pricing, distribution and promotion, sales
etc. that grabs target audience of the organization. Key roles and responsibilities of
marketing function of ASOS PLC are given below;

 Market strategies: first key role of marketing is to develop market strategies and
planning for ASOS PLC. Managers of ASOS PLC have to recognize the needs
and requirement of target customers and provide products and services. It
creates a balance between organizational objectives and opportunities of the
market.
 Marketing information system: MIS gives information regarding many factors
such as product, services, planning and implementation, supervision and control
of marketing strategies. For example, MIS provides information about logistics on
a real time basis which is much helpful of online based shop like ASOS PLC in
effectiveness of distribution network (ASOS, 2020).
 Monitoring marketing environment: marketing process also plays an important
role in identifying creative development in marketing environment which provides
a constructive answer for the development of product and services in the
company. It involves changing market culture and behavior, socio-economic
forces, internal and external changes, legal or political changes.
 Market research: it is considered to be the major role and responsibilities of
marketing. It involves specific understanding and knowledge of product, price
and customers for better communication of products and services of ASOS PLC
in the market. Such as, how competitors like Ali baba or Amazon of ASOS PLC
are selling their products and at which price or at which offer they are gaining
competitive edge need to be researched so that ASOS PLC can understand at
which manner it must price its products or sell to customers.
 Brand equity: Customers always stick to brands for better quality and added
value. Customers tend to linger over ASOS PLC as it provides added value to its

Page | 12
 products and services. Marketing furnishes reputation and creates a strong brand
value of the organization among customer mind. It directly aids ASOS PLC to
increase sales volume.
 Market segmentation: in globalization time like this market is competitive and
volatile thus any business needs real segmentation given by marketing (Howell,
2015). Marketing manager of ASOS PLC need to identify customers in the large
diverse market and promote goods and services among them. Such as. ASOS
PLC’s customer is mainly young generation.

Business to business (B2B) function depends on where ASOS does business with other
business entities. Such as, ASOS buying Dior or Mac’s product where both of the
products they’re buying from respectable business entities(Worthington et al., 2016).
Here key role and responsibility of marketing is that while doing B2B is segments
market, does brand equity analysis and maintains information about how much branded
products customers want to purchase and via the result ASOS makes purchase.

In case of Business to Customer (B2C), company directly sells the product to customer
which is the main organizational function of ASOS. Here marketing keeps track of
customer demand, data purchase pattern and buying behavior and distribution method.

Marketing as a business function and interrelationship between other

functional unit in wider organizational context
Marketing functions involves many responsibilities for ASOS PLC which are responsible
for the growth of the company. Marketing function involves strategy management,
market research, sales system, product development, finance and distribution and HR.
these marketing function have varied roles and responsibilities to promote growth of the
business which are communication, distribution, planning, promotion, product
development, selling etc. There is direct link between marketing function other
organizational function or wider organizational context (Lewis, 2013).

The interrelationship between roles and responsibilities of marketing to the wider

organizational context can be explained as marketing function are a part of business
organization and thus other departments functional units are linked with each other.

Page | 13
Such as marketing functions need to be backed up by other operational department of
ASOS PLC to perform effectively. If ASOS PLC need to plan and implement a
marketing plan then it requires support of financial department and production
department, HR department, sales and production department. For example, marketing
team of ASOS PLC want to promote a discount offer on bulk purchase of products such
as buy 3 and get 1 free scheme, then marketing team needs to communicate with
finance and production department to increase the sales and boost profit. Marketing
functions are actually separate entities in business organization but every department
and functions in an organization are linked together to enhance the profit of the
company. Foremost function of the company is to boost profit by enhancing sales which
can only be achieved by the participation of all other department for planning and
implementation of marketing plan (McDonald, 2013). Such as, production department
communicates with logistics department to balance supply and demand of product and
services. HR plans and polices and employees work are created according to market
trends, goal and objective and behavior of target customer. So, all functional units of
ASOS PLC relate with each other to portray a successful marketing plan among the
company.

Page | 14
TASK-2: Compare ways in which organizations use elements
of the marketing mix (7Ps) to achieve overall business
objectives

Designing a strategic marketing plan that tactically applies the use of

the 7Ps to achieve overall marketing objectives for ASOS PLC.
Many business organizations with their varying organizational culture apply strategies
and tactics to gain their business objectives and goals. Online based company such as
ASOS PLC utilizes & Ps of marketing mix in their marketing planning process. Its
strategic marketing plan uses strategic marketing segmentation process to achieve their
goal and its design of strategic marketing plan is given below;

Figure 1: 7Ps of Marketing Mix

Source: (Jain, 2013)

First, it defines the market or the target market for ASOS which is the generation which
uses online shopping. Then, market segmentation creation takes place. Then, the
evaluation of different segments is done to see which segment profits more (Jefferson

Page | 15
and George, 2014). Most attractive segment is evaluated and then target market is
selected. Positional strategy of ASOS PLC is created, developed and implemented.
Finally, segmentation feedback and evaluation takes place. It utilizes 7P to achieve
goals and objective.

Such as, product needs to satisfy the customer and meet needs and demands of
customer. Place need to be located such a way customers can easily buy products.
Price must provide value for money to customers. Promotion can be through B2C,
advertising or using social media (Lewis, 2013). Selling process need to be smooth for
better customer experience and finally people and physical environment need to be
ambient with the overall marketing process.

Page | 16
Compare the ways in which ASOS PLC applies the marketing mix to
the marketing planning process to achieve business objectives
Marketing is a set of interrelated activities to reach the products and services of the
company to the customers. These varieties of activities are done by a group of
interrelated people in the organization. Marketing focus on a mixture of activities and
personal to complete its task smoothly and it is known as the marketing mix. This
marketing mix is consist of 7Ps (Product, place, price, promotion, people, process and
physical evidence) (GROUCUTT and HOPKINS, 2015). To develop a successful
marketing plan any organization has to consider the combination of these components
of marketing mix. A single discrepancy in any of the components can lead to a failure.

Now, we selected ASOS PLC, a British online fashion and cosmetic retailer. They sell
clothes, shoes, beauty accessories to the consumer directly. Through their marketing
strategy I will show that how they apply 7P of marketing mix in their strategic marketing
plan.

 Product strategy: ASOS is an e-commerce retailer who is in a leading position

in the market. They sell various types of products especially fashion based direct
to the consumer using different platform of e-commerce. The main strategy they
follow is to differentiate the products and expanding the range of products. They
offer a wide range of brand products including Nike, Adidas, Calvin Klein,
Bourjois (beauty products). Their main strategy is to offer products for people of
all ages and class.

 Price Strategy: Pricing strategy is one of the key tasks of the marketing
planning. In this Era of globalization many e-commerce retailer are fighting like
amazon, Alibaba etc. So, to remain competitive they use pricing techniques
which includes offer high value products with a comparatively lower price,
offering discounts on special occasions and flexibility on delivery charge
(Jefferson and George, 2014).

 Place strategy: Place means the visual market or platform where companies sell
their products. In this case ASOS use Internet as their place. To make the online

Page | 17
 market easier to customers it recently introduced Smartphone based app both for
android and iPhone. They have warehouses in different place of UK so that they
can deliver the ordered product as quickly as possible.

 Promotion strategy: Promotion can differentiate the company among its

competitors. ASOS provide easy access to its websites and mobile app so that it
gives a customer smooth visit and purchase experience. They makes platform
like community group in Facebook and Twitter to get the opinion of the customer
and keep them connected. They promote offers in form of leaflets and booklet on
social media.

 People strategy: People are more important part of marketing mix as they are in
the main role to connect other Ps in the marketing plan. As they are online based
service provider they need a lower amount of people than a physical retailer.
They have experts in management, technology, service line who are
continuously working for development (Jain, 2013). They have small amount of
field employees to maintain the warehouse and deliver products.

 Process strategy: The way companies reach their products to the customers is
known as the process. To remain competitive companies always tries to offer a
smooth process. As ASOS is an e-commerce retailer they don’t have physical
place to offer products so they offer easy and smooth online purchase system.
Where customer can see the products and choose them and they added to the
cart then they can choose a payment method to settle the bill and the product will
be delivered on time.

 Physical Evidence strategy: As an online based retail company websites and

mobile apps are the only way to give customers something to see and judge.
Attractive websites and mobile apps attract customers.

ASOS PLC believes in latest style and updated service to attract customers. If we
consider the strategy ASOS took for every component of the marketing mix, we can see
that every component is linked very closely to the whole marketing plan. That’s why
marketing mix need to be considered in all stage of marketing plan

Page | 18
TASK-3: Develop and evaluate a basic marketing plan.

Importance and value of marketing plan

Marketing plan is a fluid document and it needs structural plan that comes from a better
research, competitive positioning of product and retaining target customer. Marketing
plan acts as a basis for future actions and decisions (Kotler et al., 2012).

Market research: market research includes collection, organization and written

documents of data about the market who are buying and selling the products (Admin,
2019). It researches market pattern, seasonality, market segment, product type,
benchmarks of the company etc.

Target market: this section includes the niche or focus market that suits the product.
ASOS sells their product worldwide and their target market is young generation where
customer aged of 25 to 45.

Product: description of products, product relation to the market, needs of the customer
matches with the product or not are described in this section. ASOS’s products are
fashion wear and cosmetics for fashion and makeup lovers.

Competition: marketing plan must consider the competitors because if competitors and
the company that sells similar product won’t attract customer. Competition describes the
unique selling proposition (Kotler et al., 2012). For example, ASOS has numerous
luxury and general competitors as Amazon, Alibaba etc.

Mission statement: a market plan have mission statement that describes who the key
marketers are, what the company is selling, and selling proposition. ASOS mission
statement is “world’s number one destination for fashion loving”.

Market strategies: marketing strategies need to be identified before applying any

promotional or marketing actions. Some can be, networking to be where the market is,
direct marketing by brochures or flyers, advertising, training programs to promote
awareness, writing articles, personal selling, web site promotion etc. (Admin, 2019).

Page | 19
Price, positioning and branding: when customers and market is surveyed and
analyzed to determine the price of the product, how the product will be positioned in the
market and in which way brand awareness will be created. ASOS’s target customer’s
income ranges from middle-high for this ASOS’s product price must not range too high
which exceeds the purchase level of middle class.

Budget: budgeting marketing plan is a must. Which plans are achievable which need
extra resources all should come into the budget (Alexander et al., 2017).

Monitoring results: identifying the strategies that are properly working through testing
and analyzing. Then customers are surveyed for identifying the utilization of resources.
Researching market, competitors, market position and promotional excellence. In short,
monitoring results depicts whether company’s efforts been up to the mark or not.

Link between Marketing plan, objectives and strategies

Marketing plans are blue print of future goal and aim at certain point a business entity
wants to visualize itself. Marketing objectives are goals set by business while promoting
its product or service (Betz, 2018). Marketing objectives are marketing strategy when
they are segmented or divided into smaller parts to achieve overall goals.

First a business creates a marketing objective or goal such as ASOS’s marketing

objective is to become world’s number 1 destination for fashion lovers. To fulfill this
objective, ASOS makes a marketing plan such as how to grab potential customers and
for this marketing plan is established and varied responsibilities are given to managers
and employees. To execute marketing objective and plan, marketing strategies or small
goals and tactics are presented such as 10% discount on 5 th purchase, buy 2 get one
free, or selling unique products that no one sells. So, there is link between marketing
plan, objective and function.

Production and evaluation of a basic marketing plan for ASOS PLC

Marketing plan is a process by which companies try to cope with the changes and make
the better use of opportunities. New trend in technology uses and mobilizes of culture
business facing new firm of customer behavior. When we are developing and marketing

Page | 20
plan for any companies we have to focus on the marketing mix. Proper use of the
components of the marketing mix can make a plan more achievable and more realistic.

Marketing strategy: marketing strategy includes identifying target audience, setting

goals and developing budget. Its marketing strategy will be to rationalize key market
coverage around the world, strengthen the supply chain by reducing lead time to
market. ASOS’s marketing strategy is explained below:

 Market segmentation: as ASOS is an online fashion and cosmetic retailer its

market is properly segmented and that is fashion and cosmetic segment of the
market which is actually a niche market that consist of its own range of clothing,
accessories, and other products.

 Target audience/customers: ASOS is established in 196 countries that has

more than 850 brands. The target audience of ASOS is young adults to middle
adults aged ranging between 25-45 years old who fashion, clothing and makeup
or cosmetics user. (ASOS, 2020). As it’s a conversion of casual culture into
luxury brand, its pricing range includes the people of middle income to high
income customers.

 Set measurable goals: goals need to be quantifiable and must be measurable

such as numbers. ASOS’s goal is to develop sustainable long term solution for
production, sales and distribution to double in size of business and gain 15%
more customers worldwide by changing the color of packaging to make
marketing more appealing.

After analyzing market strategy, as a new assistant of marketing manager I’m

suggesting a basic marketing plan to make a strong loyal customers base. The
marketing plan is presented below:

Page | 21
 Figure 2: Marketing plan

Source: (MCDONALD and WILSON, 2011)

In figure 2 we can see a marketing plan which includes mission establishment, situation
analysis, setting objectives and strategies, relating the components of marketing mix
and implementation and evaluation (MCDONALD and WILSON, 2011). Each of the
stage has some specific task to make the best result of the plan for ASOS Plc.

Setting a corporate mission: Corporate mission is the new target of the company
where they want to reach. It can be spreading the business with the existing market or
in a new market. It can be a new product launch or a new service to infancy the current
position in the market. ASOS is a leading e-commerce retail company which has
competitive rivals like amazon and Alibaba. So the corporate mission of ASOS is to
build strong loyal customer base and increase sells by 10%.

Page | 22
Situation Analysis: Situation analysis means understanding the present market. Some
questions arise when we are doing situation analysis-

 What is the present condition in the market?

 How competitive rivals are doing?
 What is the present trend in the market?
 What opportunities and threats are there in future?

Answering these questions can give a clear understanding about the internal and
external environment. SWOT (Strength Weakness Opportunities and Threats) analysis
can be used to understand the situation.

Corporate strategy: The small tactics and objectives which help the organization to
gain the corporate mission is known as corporate strategy. When we will be able to
understand the lacking and strength of the company then can set up new strategy to
tackle the situation (JOBBER and CHADWICK, 2012). As ASOS serve through online
based platform new technology use or more personalized service can help to achieve
the corporate mission.

Relating strategy with marketing mix: ASOS Plc has to set new strategy within all the
components of marketing mix (Jain, 2013). There are some strategy given below for
individual components of marketing mix :

 Products – In product ASOS can diversify with products range such as they can
add new brands of different price range to attract more segmented customers.
 Price – Price can be segmented considering customer demand.
 Place- All social media should be used as potential platform for selling products
and promotions. Instant response system should be introduced in Facebook or
any other social media.
 Promotion – Because of increasing competition more promotion needed to keep
customers. ASOS need to focus on event and occasional promotion with special
discounts or price package.

Page | 23
  People – Field employees like warehouse controller and delivery personal
should be more careful about product quality maintenance. Delivery personal
should be more personalized and caring during service.
 Process- Process should be easier to handle and not time consuming.
 Physical evidence – Physical evidence means the website design social media
promotion theme etc. These things should be more updated and attractive.

Implementation and evaluation: At the last stage of planning process we have to

implement that strategy to see that how they are working within the components of
marketing mix. Customer response should be measured to evaluate the Impact of new
strategy (Howell, 2015). If the plan works then we should keep developing the plan.

This plan is not much costly but for upgrading the websites and promotions it may cost.
Additional cost will be there to arrange new products. However, except these cost
factors the plan is not complicated to implement. This plan can accelerate the marketing
of ASOS Plc and gain more loyal customers as well as it will increase sells.

Evaluating and monitoring marketing plans using control and

evaluation techniques
Marketing planning and strategies are key business decisions made by business
management authorities. It determine the future of business. So it is important to
evaluate marketing plan and strategies as early as possible to cope with the market
conditions and to see how the plans are working. Some techniques of evaluation are
given below:

Sales analysis

Sales analysis is a smart and quick response tool to measure marketing plan and
strategies. It helps the marketing department to understand either there is any increase
on sells or not. By monitoring sells units, company can monitor the amount of sells
increase or decrease in the market and evaluate the plan’s effectiveness.

Market share analysis

Page | 24
Market share analysis is another effective tool but it takes relatively long time to get the
response from the market share analysis. If marketing plan works effectively market
share goes up. But market share can grow or decrease because of other reasons. But
in the long term marketing plan can influence the market share and market position.

Efficiency ratios

Efficiency ratio can be a effective tool for measuring marketing plan and strategies. To
determine efficiency we calculate the sells increase and cost of marketing to evaluate
the marketing plan.

Cost profitability analysis

Marketing planning and implementing is more costly than many other business function.
Sometimes marketing plan can cause changes in business process and new branding
and promotions also costs a lot. Marketing executives measures that how much profit
does this marketing plan bringing against cost of marketing.

These are the techniques ASOS can use to evaluate and monitor its marketing plan and
can keep it on track.

Page | 25
Conclusion
This report provided information about the roles and responsibilities of marketing
function and inters relationship of other organizational function. The marketing mix 7P’s
are compared in the business organizations that can gain business objectives. The
development and evaluation of marketing plan is described shortly that can enhance the
sales and profit of ASOS PLC.

Page | 26
Bibliography

 Admin, P. (2019). The Ten Key Components of a Marketing Plan. [online]

Pharmacy Management. Available at:
https://www.pharmamanage.gr/en/marketing/373-the-ten-key-components-of-a-
marketing-plan [Accessed 26 April. 2020].
 Alexander, R., Surface, F. and Alderson, W. (2017). Marketing. Boston: Ginn and
Company, p.25.
 ASOS, P., (2020). About Us | ASOS. [online] ASOS. Available at:
<https://www.asos.com/about/> [Accessed 27 April 2020].
 Babin, B., (2019). Essentials Of Marketing Research. Boston, MA: Cencage
Learning.
 Betz, F., (2018). Strategic Business Models. Bingley: Emerald Publishing
Limited.
 FERGUSON, E., (2017). Toyota PESTEL/PESTLE Analysis &
Recommendations - Panmore Institute. [online] Panmore Institute. Available at:
<http://panmore.com/toyota-pestel-pestle-analysis-recommendations> [Accessed
16 April 2020].
 GROUCUTT, J. and HOPKINS, C. (2015) Marketing (Business Briefings).
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Howell, R., (2015). Market segmentation: the importance of age cohorts. The
Neumann Business Review. pp.21-54
 Jain, M.K., (2013). An analysis of marketing mix: 7Ps or more. Asian Journal of
Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(4).
 Jefferson, D.A. and George, B.P., (2014). Standardized and Localized Strategies
and the Role of Culture in Marketing and Consumption.
 JOBBER, D. and CHADWICK, F., (2012). Principles and Practice of Marketing.
7th Ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill.
 Kotler, P., Sheth, J. and Urban, G. (2012). Strategic marketing. Los Angeles:
SAGE.

Page | 27
 Lewis, B.R., (2013). Customer care in service organizations. Marketing
Intelligence & Planning.
 McDaniel Jr, C. and Gates, R., (2014). Marketing research. Wiley Global
Education.
 MCDONALD, M. and WILSON, H., (2011). Marketing Plans: How to Prepare
Them, How to Use Them. 7th Ed.Chichester: John Riley and Sons.
 McDonald, M.H., (2013). Ten barriers to marketing planning. Journal of Product
& Brand Management.
 Treverton, G. and Ghez, J., 2012. Making Strategic Analysis Matter. Santa
Monica, CA: RAND.
 Warner, A., 2016. Strategic Analysis And Choice. New York [N.Y.]: Business
Expert Press, pp.20-45.
 Worthington, I., Britton, C. and Thompson, E., (2016). The Business
Environment. 8th ed. Pearson Publication, pp.132-140.

Page | 28