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errorMarketing Is It The End All Of Business
By: More articles by kismet

Marketing as we all recognize is a key vital area of any business. Its function is to ensure that your products or services are in the public eye sought after and then purchased. Proper marketing can make a company and if done improperly can break a company.

Your organization with its staff of one or ten thousand people may be doing a great job of marketing but still be failing in other key areas. Marketing is vital yet it is only one of twentyone key areas of every business!

A business needs to manage all of its twentyone departments not just marketing or sales. For example if you bring in a lot of business yet arent prepared to deliver the business will still fail. Or if you bring in lots of business and produce lots of products and then have weak quality control your business will fail eventually. The Lincoln Continental and Cadillac were neck and neck in sales in the 1950s. Ford Motor Company rushed to be the first of the two companies to come out with power windows. The new model was released in such a rush that they had not gotten the bugs out of the power windows. Every owner had trouble. The dealers were recalling every one of the cars as a result. Many long time Ford customers never bought a Lincoln or a Ford again. Only 40 years later are people buying Lincolns in large numbers again. Cadillac throughout the 60s became the American Luxury Sedan with no competition domestically for over a decade.

When you understand all the components of you business then you can be analyze it in much the same way that a doctor does when he gives you a full body examination. Whether you are a oneman show or have a very large staff your company still has these 21 key areas within its seven major divisions. Each of these key areas needs to be functioning well.

There are a series of steps one goes through to do a business check up. Among the first things normally done in analyzing a business is to establish what the ideal business picture is for your business. Next you need to determine what your short and long term goals are for the business. Then in depths study of your business (all 21 departments) is done as it now exist. This study would then be compared to the ideal business picture. In doing this one can pinpoint the exact key areas that need to be addressed immediately to make the actual scene look more like your ideal scene. These areas are typically the ones that are driving you crazy and stressing you out.

Once these areas are pinpointed an Action Program can then be worked out and executed. An Action Program has steps that address and handle the trouble areas found. Your existing staff may do these program steps or you may elect to bring in specialists to assist in their implementation. The goal is to be in greater control over all the key areas of your business. An Action Program generated in this way and effectively executed immediately starts relieving stress in a business.

By this time I guess you might be asking the question: So what are these seven divisions and 21 departments Here is a brief overview of whats involved in a business and the areas that would need to be fully analyzed in creating an effective Action Plan for your business. Each of the seven main divisions of a business further breaks down into 3 departments to give you a total of 21 departments in a business.

1) The Establishment Division: This division deals with personnel communications and business ethics. Regarding personnel we are talking about hiring handling and basically managing personnel so that there are enough of them to do the work of the company and to ensure that they are properly allocated. Communications deals with handling the mail in and out internal dispatches and making sure that the company keeps communicating with its customers vendors etc and that letters from customers are not stuck in desk draws and remain unanswered.

Business ethics deals with ensuring that customers are fairly dealt with and that personnel are actually being productive on their jobs and not being a drain on the company while a few carry the entire load. Sort of like a friendly traffic cop that just makes sure that the personnel are actually doing things that are supposed to be done. The whole concept of this division is one of building the basics. Get the staff in make sure they are trained on the basics of their job and are on their jobs ensures that communication is taking place and that the personnel is doing what they are supposed to be doing.

2) The Sales and Marketing Division: This division deals with promotion/marketing publications and repeat business. Promotion and marketing pieces are designed and disseminated from this area. Brochures information packets catalogues newsletters and anything to get your existing clients to give you repeat business is here. Books and literature which support your services or products are sold here. Contacting repeat customers and making further sales is also found here. Most companies have a gold mine within their existing customer lists. You can typically get business from an existing client at onefifth the cost of developing a new client. Continued contact with your existing customer base is done in this division.

3) The Finance Division: This division handles income disbursements and financial records. The financial matters records assets and materiel of the company are its main functions. It is responsible for making sure that less money is spent than came in. It is this divisions responsibility to remain solvent and never (and we mean never) spend more than it makes. This division budgets all expenditures including major purchases of real estate so the company runs on internal finance. Part of budgeting is doing income planning. Budgeting also includes a required contribution to your untouchable cash reserves which is only used as a last resort and preferably never.

Reserve accounts are funded to set aside money for paymentinfull purchases. Budgeting properly done ensures that a business is able to pay for everything it needs with few exceptions. This division naturally handles payroll and banking and keep exact track of all financial and accounting records. The main objective of this area is to track and record every penny; from the instant it enters the company to the moment it leaves.

4) The Production Division: This division develops the services or products you sell. The delivery of services scheduling preparing and delivery is done in this area. This is where manufacturing plans schedules and produces their products. This Division is all about creating and delivering the products and / or services that you are selling to your customers.

5) The Quality Control Division: This division sees that every product or service leaving the