Sales and Marketing - Essay Example

? Sales and Marketing Career Area Researched Table of Contents Introduction 3 Importance of qualification, skill, knowledge and experience 4 2. Different working conditions 5 3. Types of organisations which provide roles in sales and marketing 7 4. Career opportunities 8 5. Condition of the graduate job market in sales & marketing 9 Summary and conclusion 11 Reference List 12 Appendix 14 Introduction A student searches for employment depending upon the skill set gained during the course of study as well as the availability of the employment opportunities. The chances of getting employed depend upon various factors. Studies have been conducted to find the exact correlation and the cause effect relationship between employability and other factors (Achrol, 2011). The vastness and complexity of the subject has limited the chances to establish correct theoretical structures. Due to this reason no theoretical models can be applied to explain the exact cause of employability or unemployment. So a direct approach is adopted which is more descriptive and less mathematical in nature, so as to explain the factors that affect graduate employment. Apart from the two factors like skill and availability, there are also various factors which are virtually endless in number (Allan and Michael, 2010). Due to limitation of space and time only important factors are included in the study. The factors are conditions of the working environment, actual presence of organizations that can provide the desired roles and the opportunity for progression. The research paper discusses the above mentioned areas on the context of graduate employment opportunities in sales and marketing. The research paper divides the discussion of graduate employment in area of sales and marketing with equal weight upon both primary and secondary research. A sample size of 200 graduates is selected through simple random sampling. The graduates are asked questions and their views are recorded with help of Likert scale and by denoting corresponding percentage. In order to keep the research work justified only those questions are asked which are deemed to be important in the primary research. 1. Importance of qualification, skill, knowledge and experience Primary research Most important factor among qualification, skill, knowledge and experience Fig 1: Factors important for graduate employment (Source: Author’s Creation) The responses from the respondents indicate that experience and skill matters the most in case of employment in the marketing and sales. Knowledge and qualification count only as the third and fourth important factor. The justification is that experience and skill set matters the most since the ability to close deals and ability to negotiate and bargain does not come from knowledge or qualification. It can be gained only through hands on experience. These factors matter in the area of hard core sales although there are certain areas like developing the marketing mix and promotional mix or choosing the pricing strategy, which can be gained from knowledge and qualification. Another important factor that needs to be pointed out is the fact that the sample is taken not from a few particular institutions only. The institutions that are considered for the creation of the sample have institutional ranks that are comparable to each other. So some form of homogeneity has already settled in the sample due to which the views and opinions can have degree of bias, although it has negligible effect on the outcome of the analysis. Secondary research Andrews and Smith (2010) conducted studies with the data obtained from the employment board of both developed and developing countries. The studies indicate that companies that employed graduates as relationship manager or marketing officers in the sale and marketing domain. They gave more preference to experience and skill set of the students. Although exceptions are observed where more preference is given to knowledge and qualification but only to those who graduated from reputed and well known institutions (Bajaj, 2001). Although in areas of brand promotions and strategic marketing domains more preference is given to the knowledge and qualification. This trend is observable in both developed as well as developing countries. 2. Different working conditions Effect of the condition of working environment on graduate employment Fig 2: Amiable working condition (Source: Author’s Creation) 47% of the respondents strongly agree that amiable working conditions are one of the most important factors. The justification is that the companies usually set up business centres which have easy supply of resources, easy availability of workers and increased transportation facility. Although the most important factor other than this factor is political stability. If the environment is politically unstable with limited constitutional rights then the companies are reluctant to set up business centres in such areas. Other macro factors are presence of healthy competition among the industries. These constituted the effect of the macro environment. On a micro level the working conditions are organisational culture, organisational reputation, healthy working environment with prevalence of integrity and ethics. Secondary research Studies indicate that the countries which are characterised by stable and democratic government with no infringement on constitutional rights had a better chance of creating a healthy, competitive and sustainable business environment (Benner and Sandstrom, 2012). This is because of the reason that the companies can flourish easily and prosper through innovation and improvement. This helps in providing more opportunities for graduates to get employed. For example, when Google went to set up business initiatives in China, the company had to face various difficulties that slowed the process of development. The constant undermining of the constitutional rights is rampant in China. The company ran into bureaucratic entanglements and had to retreat finally (George, 2005). The presence of the company on China would have provided employment to a significant number of graduates and help associated business to flourish. This in turn would have led to new business developments. Thus, condition of the working environment contributes to the development of graduate employment. 3. Types of organisations which provide roles in sales and marketing The roles of sales and marketing can be divided into sales and trading, internet marketing, design, analysis, product management and administrative and managerial activities. The types of role offered to the graduate depend upon the skill set and knowledge with the type of responsibility and role for the particular post (Bonaccorsi and Daraio, 2009). The posts which are related more to the activities like the on-field sales jobs, the preference is given to those graduates who have prior work experience and other skills like negotiation and persuasion. The organisations that usually offer these kinds of roles to the graduates are franchises, or who work at the supplier ends and the distributors ends. Some of the examples of the organisations that act as intermediary between the suppliers and the manufacturers are Koogar Limited, Harvem Ltd, Everything Branded, A K Promotions UK Ltd, Caspia Consultancy Ltd, The Ideal Marketing Company and many more. These companies facilitate the process of trade activities between the supplier and the manufacturer (Chiefele, 2012). The companies employ graduates are on a temporary basis. Once the graduates working as employees are able to meet the target set then they are considered as permanent employees. The graduates who are employed in the distribution of the products have to be expert in pitching the products and services. This is because of the reason that unlike the products sold in the distribution channel pitching the products in the supply chain is considerably easier (Gebrekidan and Awuah, 2003). It is seen that the graduates who does not have prior work experience generally start their career as a part of the sales and marketing team in the supply channel (Clark and Mathur, 2011). The suppliers most of the time have contracts with manufacturing companies for certain time period. Thus, there is not much need to renegotiate the terms and conditions of the deal when pitching the products with the same manufacturer. 4. Career opportunities Career opportunities in the sales and market roles Fig 3: Excellent career opportunities in sales and marketing (Source: Author’s Creation) Most of the respondents strongly agree that opportunities offered in sales and marketing roles are excellent. Although it must be noted that most of the respondents who took part in the survey had minimum experience of 1 year. So for this reason the respondents strongly agree that there are excellent opportunities since it is mentioned that candidates with good skill and experiences are give more preference. Thus, these graduates also have more opportunities. Secondary research Studies indicate that the job opportunities for graduates in developing countries in the area of sales and marketing are considerably more than the job opportunities for those who are based in developed countries. The primary reason for this is that, most of the developed countries have reached a point of saturation and there is scarcely any area left for the further development (Cravens, 2010). The developing countries on the other hand represent vast untapped markets with little product and service penetration. Thus, there is immense chance to carry out massive sales and marketing activities in areas like insurance, banking services as well as products like cell phones (Das, Quelch and Swartz, 2000). The career opportunities are found in both client side marketing roles as well as agency side marketing roles. The client side marketing roles which have strong job opportunities are marketing assistant, marketing officer, marketing executive and junior marketing assistant. These are entry level jobs in the sales and marketing roles. In the agency side the roles which are offered are market research positions, account management positions and public relations officer positions (David, James and Arthur, 2011). The roles mentioned in the agency side are mainly strategic in nature, so the graduates who have more knowledge and qualification in comparison to skills and experience are given more preference. 5. Condition of the graduate job market in sales & marketing Table 1: Statistics regarding condition of graduate employment market Median pay for the year 2010 $40,570 per year  $19.12 per hour Entry-Level Education in Sales and Marketing jobs Bachelor’s degree   Work Experience required in Sales and Marketing None   On Job Training Salary None   Number of Jobs available in sales and marketing 283,700   Average growth rate 31% (indicates the rate at which at which change in this sector will take place)   Employment change(for the period 2010 -2020) 116,700   Source: (David, 2010) The above table gives an indication of the present condition of the graduate employment in the area of sales and marketing. The median pay calculated in both hourly rate and yearly rate is equivalent to the other jobs in the entry level position. Compared to other job roles in finance, human resource, the entry level in this role requires minimum qualification of graduation only. The following figure gives an indication of the employment rate of graduates in sales and marketing roles in comparison to other sectors (Flint, Woodruf and Gardial, 2002). The number of jobs available in the sales and marketing domain are more than other domains like accounting and finance, human resource, and retail and management. This is due to the reason as stated in the above table that is high rate of attrition or high number of changes in the job profile (Flint, Woodruff and Gardial, 2007). Sales and marketing jobs are tough by nature and mostly roles like personal selling are even tougher. So although the numbers of in-takes in the field are sufficiently high but at the same time, the numbers of outflows or employees changing jobs are also high. Apart from these reasons, the sales and marketing positions offer career opportunities which are equally comparable with other job roles (Gabriele and Peter, 2002). Fig 4: Comparison of graduate employment rate Source: (Garrick, 2011) Summary and conclusion The analysis indicates that the experience and knowledge is given more important for jobs which include pitching for the products and services. Whereas roles that are more strategic in nature gives more importance to knowledge and qualification. If the working condition is amiable, then it facilitates the development of new business opportunities, this in turn increases graduate employment. Whereas when political and economic environment is unstable then new business opportunity cannot flourish. This reduces the employment opportunity for the graduates. The job opportunities are many and varied starting from the job opportunities in the supply chain and to the distribution chain. Due to limited experience, the graduates start in the sales and job profiles in the supply chain. The job market for the sales and marketing role has indicators like employment rate, media payments that are comparable with other roles like accounting and finance although these roles also witness the highest rate of attrition. Reference List Achrol, R. S., 2011. Evolution of the marketing organization: New forms for turbulent environments. Journal of Marketing, 5(5), pp. 77 – 93. Allan, B. and Michael, S., 2010. Toward an emerging global culture and the effects of globalisation on obsolescing national cultures. Journal of International Management, 2(6), pp. 395–407. Andrews, J. and Smith, D. C. 2010. In search of the marketing imagination: factors affecting the creativity of marketing programmes for mature products. Journal of Marketing Research, 33(2), pp.174-187. Bajaj, C., 2001. Foreign Collaborations: An innovative option. IIMB Management Review, 6(3), pp.142-145. Benner, M. and Sandstrom, U., 2012. Institutionalizing the triple helix: research funding and norms in the academic system. Research Policy, 2(9), pp. 291–301. Bonaccorsi, A. and Daraio, C., 2009. Age effects in scientific productivity — the case of the Italian national research council (cnr). Scientometrics, 5(8), pp. 49–90. Chiefele, U., 2012. Interest, learning, and motivation. Educational Psychologist, 26(3), pp. 299-323. Clark, T. and Mathur, L. L., 2011. Global myopia: globalisation theory in international business. Journal of International Management, 2(4), pp. 361–372. Cravens, D. W., 2010. Implementation strategies in the market-driven era. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2(6), pp. 237 – 241. Das, N., Quelch, J. and Swartz, G., 2000. Prepare your company for global pricing. Sloan Management Review, 42(1), pp. 61-70. David, H. C., James, C. K., and Arthur, J. C., 2011. Measuring creativity for innovation management. Measuring Creativity for Innovation Management, 6(3), pp 67-98. David, A., 2010. Bunders in international business. Journal of Marketing Science, 2(5), pp. 4(3). Flint, D. J., Woodruff, R. B. and Gardial, S. F., 2002. Exploring the phenomenon of customers’ desired value change in a business-to-business context. Journal of Marketing, 6(6), pp. 102 – 117. Flint, D. J., Woodruff, R. B. and Gardial, S. F., 2007. Customer value change in industrial marketing relationships: A call for new strategies and research. Industrial Marketing Management, 26(2), pp. 163–176. Gabriele, S. H. and Peter, A. D., 2002. The development of a measure to assess viewers' judgments of the creativity of an advertisement: a preliminary study. Advances in Consumer Research, 19(1), pp. 817-825. Garrick, G., 2011. The evolution of organisational psychology in the 21st century. Journal of Organisational Research, 36(5), pp. 3-8 Gebrekidan, D. A. and Awuah, G. B., 2003. Inter organizational cooperation: A new view of strategic alliances: The case of Swedish firms in the international market. Industrial Marketing Management, 3(1), pp. 679 – 694. George, M. Z. 2005. Creativity in advertising. Journal of Advertising, 22(2), pp. 1-33. Appendix Q1. Which one among these do you think has the highest importance with respect to employment? Variables Qualification Skill Knowledge Experience Percentage of respondents 27 71 21 81 Q2. Do you feel that the different working conditions have an effect on the employments? Type of response Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Percentage of response 67 46 33 28 26 Q3. Do you agree that the sales and marketing have excellent career opportunities? Type of response Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Percentage of response 57 45 20 43 35 Read More