MANAGEMENT AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

It is useful to think of management as being divided into three levels.

Supervisory managers are persons who directly oversee the efforts of those who actually perform the work. Most supervisory managers have titles like supervisor, fore­man, leadman, or office manager. Department heads at universities are typically considered to be supervisory' managers because they oversee the activities of profes­sors, who actually do the jobs of research and teaching. At Wendy's the person responsible for a particular store is a supervisory manager.

Middle managers are managers above the supervisory level but subordinate to the firm's most senior executives. These persons might be department managers, division directors, area managers, or plant managers. Wendy's has a number of levels of middle managers; for example, a district manager may have charge of ten restaurants.

Division or area managers may be responsible for a number of district managers.

Top managers are the organization's most senior executives. They usually include the chairman of the board and the president, along with vice-presidents who are responsible for major subdivisions of the oorganization. Top managers are responsible for providing the overall direction of the firm.

In summary, a manager is anyone, at any level of the organization, who directs the efforts of other people wherever a group of people work together to achieve results, a manager is usually present. A manager is the catalyst who makes things happen. The manager establishes goals, plans operations, organizes various resourc­es — personnel, materials, equipment, capital — leads and motivates people to perform, evaluates actual results against the goals, and develops people for the organization. To be effective, a manager must possess and continually develop several essential skills.

There are three categories of skills important to a manager's overall effectiveness.

The relative significance of each skill varies according to form of management, but the best managers recognize that they must develop and practise each of the managerial skills to be effective in accomplishing organizational and personal goals. They dare not concentrate their efforts on only one of these skills, even though it may be the most important one at their lev­el in the organization. It is the combination of skills that is vital to managerial success.

7. WHAT IS MARKETING?

Itis impossible to speak about marketingwithout understanding what "needs and wants" mean. So let's begin with the definition of needs and wants. A needoccurs when a person feels physiologically deprived of basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter. A wantis a felt need that is shaped by a person's knowledge, culture, and personality. So if you feel hungry, you have developed a basic need and desire to eat something. Let's say you then want to eat an apple or a candy bar because, based on your past experience and personality, you know these will satisfy your hunger need. Effective marketing, in the form of creating an awareness of good product at convenient locations, can clearly shape a person's wants.

The American Marketing Association, representing marketing professionals in the United States and Canada, states that "marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives."Many people incorrectly believe that marketing is the same thing as advertising or personal selling. This definition shows marketing to be a far broader activity. Further, this definition stresses the importance of beneficial exchanges that satisfy the objectives of both those who buy and those who sell ideas, goods, and services—whether they be individuals or organizations.

To serve both buyers and sellers, marketing seeks (1) to discover the needsand wantsofprospective customers and (2) to satisfy them. Theseprospectivecustomers include both individuals buying for themselves and their households and organizations that buy for their own use (such as manufacturers) or for resale (such as wholesalers and retailers.Thekey to achieving these two objectives is the idea of exchange, which is the trade of things of value between buyer and sellerso thateach is better off after the trade.

Formarketing to occur, at least four factors are required: (1) two or moreparties (individuals or organizations) with unsatisfied needs, (2) desire and ability ontheir part to be satisfied, (3) a way for the parties to communicate,and (4) something to exchange.