Introduction to Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Introduction to Marketing - Essay Example Current paper focuses on the potential value of a specific framework of marketing, the marketing mix, to help a business operating in the British organic food industry, the Sea View Farm, to improve its performance. The fact that the business owners do not have experience on marketing practices should be taken into consideration when deciding on the marketing strategies that the firm would implement for securing its market position and for setting the basis for growth in the future. It seems that marketing could help the business to increase its performance but only under the terms that all the phases of the relevant plan will be closely monitored. The cooperation with a professional of the marketing industry would increase the chances for the success of the above initiative. 2. Overview of the current marketing mix and its importance to the organisation. In its most common form, the marketing mix includes four elements, also known as ‘four Ps’: product, place, price and promotion. These elements need to be reviewed and evaluated in order to decide on the marketing strategies that would be most appropriate for covering each organization’s needs. Relevant literature should be primarily reviewed. Marketing mix is a framework that has been established for covering specific marketing needs. In fact, these needs seem to be common in businesses in different industries (Doole & Lowe 2008). The marketing mix introduces four criteria that can be used for developing an effective marketing plan (Leadley & Forsyth 2004). One of the key advantages of marketing mix is its standardization (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel 2011). Indeed, firms that decide to use the specific approach need to focus on four elements, as included in the marketing mix, without having the potential to alternate or to replace these elements (Usman et al.2012). Of course, failures when implementing the specific approach are difficult to be fully avoided. In practice, it has been proved that the marketing mix has certain drawbacks, such as: a) the marketing mix is developed according to ‘the seller’s perceptions on market’ (Kotler & Armstrong 2010, p.77); b) it is partially opposed to the market rule that in the context of each market the interests of the consumer need to be primarily served (Czinkota, M. & Ronkainen 207). In fact, the marketing mix highlights the interests of the seller as being of equal worth with those of the buyer; c) the structure/ content of marketing mix cannot be effectively protected; competitors can develop similar marketing mixes for protecting their market position (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel 2011); d) marketing mix may not cooperate well with certain business strategies that are widely used for promoted products/ services worldwide; reference is made, as an example to the case of branding (Riaz & Tanveer 2011) and e) marketing mix may not be quite effective in markets with strong socio-cultural environments, where the influen ce of culture on ethics is quite strong (Keramati et al. 2012). The potential expansion of marketing mix, i.e. above the 4Ps, could possibly help to resolve the problems presented above (Goi 2009). In addition, it should be noted that in turbulent markets, the findings of the marketing mix would not be quite credible (Borden 1984). The market conditions would be changed regularly under the pressures of external forces; thus any assumption for the actual qualities/ potentials of

Term Paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Assignment - Term Paper Example To ensure this, medical professionals have to understand the role and importance of informed consent, and apply it in their treatment and research processes. Informed consent is important as it helps patients to make their independent decisions about their treatment, and helps research participants to decide independently whether to participate in a research, without being coerced (Carmen and Joffe WEB). This paper discusses the importance of informed consent in medical treatment and research, as well as the different ethical issues arising in the course of informed consent in medical treatment and research. The concept of informed consent can be traced to different disciplines, including law, medicine, and philosophy. Consent to treatment is traced to law, while consent to research can be traced to ethical codes and administrative regulations. Informed consent has important moral and practical influence on the practice of medical treatment. This draws on the principle of autonomy, a nd the fact that a patient must be availed the opportunity to make their own independent decisions about the treatment offered to them. Similarly, in medical research, the participants are not coerced to participate. Medical treatment is therapeutic, unlike medical research, which is non-therapeutic, therefore, research participants are expected to participate voluntarily, since the research findings might not benefit them directly, but the patients in future. This is different from medical treatment, where the treatment benefits the patients directly. Nonetheless, in both cases, it is important to employ informed consent as a sign of respect for the individuals involved (Carmen and Joffe WEB). According to the Evans (WEB), the physician must avail all necessary information concerning the treatment procedure in order for this to be regarded as informed consent. This information will help the patient to make their judgement and settle for a right decision. In medical treatment, the i nformation must include the risks the patient is exposed to by the specific medical procedure, as well as the outcome of the medical procedure and the other alternatives, which might be useful to the patient. In medical research, the participants must be informed about the purpose of the research and its usefulness to the discipline. This information leads to an informed decision by the patients and research participants. In addition, before pronouncing the informed consent, a physician must ensure that he or she understands the concerns of their patient, before starting to act on the patient’s decision. Physicians should not assume and make decisions for these patients, instead, a physician should take the necessary steps to ensure that those patients, who are poor communicators or those with speaking inabilities get to understand the consent information in order to participate wholly in decision-making concerning their treatment (Caroline 417). This applies to medical resea rch too, where coercion is considered unethical. On the other hand, informed consent in medical research and experimentation is equally important for both the medical researcher and the subject, who might be the patients or other healthy individuals. In some cases, a patient might require an innovative kind of treatment, which goes beyond the normal diagnosis and prescription. Such innovative or experimental treatment