1 What is the difference between Product Management and General

Marketing Management under the following heads:a. Scope of Responsibility

b. Nature of decision making
c. Time horizon
Explain taking an example of any FMCG / Consumer Durable or B2B
company.

A
Scope of Responsibility:
A product managers scope of responsibility is much narrower than that of a
general marketing manager. As a general manager, one would have under
his responsibility typically a wider range or a portfolio of products whereas a
product manager has the task of managing a single product from the
preparation of the marketing plan to overseeing the product and its
performance throughout its product cycle.
As an example to elaborate further, we take here the example of Volvo, a
Swedish car making company. Since its inception in 1924, Volvo has always
stood for safety. Today, the company is well recognized as being one of the
world leaders in making safe cars and coming up with several innovative
safety systems that have been incorporated in their car designs. One such
example is the 3 point safety belt, which today is a standard in every car
worldwide. The philosophy with which Volvo makes its cars is reflected in the
statements of its founders, Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson who said
"Cars are driven by people. The guiding principle behind everything we make
at Volvo, therefore, is and must remain, safety." Former CEO Pehr
Gyllenhammar has a similar take on things when he says "When we asked
people around the world what Volvo stood for, they would say: 'Safety.' That
was good. For years, the industry said safety did not sell. I was convinced it
would. It was always extremely gratifying when customers wrote to tell us
about how they had survived accidents in a Volvo." These 3, are General
Marketing Management, and they are responsible for setting the overall
philosophy (safety) of Volvo that would transcend all of their product lines. As
opposed to this, a product manager is mostly involved with one certain
product that the company would make, for example, Volvos product
manager for their line of buses is different from that of their cars.

Nature of Decision Making:

Decision making differs in being more tactical for a product manager v/s
being a more strategic decision for a general marketing manager. This
difference is also due to the differences in the scope of responsibilities that
the 2 roles have. Strategic plans need to have an overall plan in terms of
what a company wants to achieve. Tactics refers to the means to actually
execute on those plans. Strategy for a company like Volvo would hence
involve reinforcing their world class standards of safety and to continue to
retain the tag of being the worlds safest car maker. Such an objective has to
be achieved by the general marketing managers, since being general they
have the means to direct plans from a higher level in the company. A product
manager on the other hand, is a mini CEO within the organization, who has
the responsibility of making sure a particular product succeeds in the market.
This product would be one that fits into the overall direction that the
company wants to go to. The product, which could be a particular car or a
bus made by Volvo, is therefore a means for Volvo to execute on their overall
strategy or vision that they have. In that sense, product managers are
tactical in terms of their decision making within the overall scheme of
things in an organization. They must execute the plans that general
managers make, which means the target market must believe that Volvos
are indeed safer than any other car in the world.

Time Horizon:
A broader scope of responsibility combined with a more strategic tilt toward
decision making means that general marketing managers must necessarily
have a much longer time horizon in mind compared to their product manager
peers. A product manager is typically involved heavily with one product or a
line of products, and hence his focus would be a year or less, which would be
the amount of time it would be possible to get a new product into the
market.
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2 What is a Marketing Plan? What are the components of a Marketing Plan?

Explain the role of the Product Manager in drawing up a Marketing Plan
taking example of any Shopping Product.

A
A marketing plan is a written documents containing guidelines for the
business centers marketing program and allocations over the planning
period. A marketing plan intends to study the current situation facing the
product, define the problems and opportunities facing the business, establish

objectives of the product, define strategies to achieve those objectives, and

affix responsibilities for those objectives.
Components of a Marketing Plan:
1. Executive Summary:
This is a 1-3 page outline highlighting current situation, objectives,
strategies, principle action strategies and financial expectations.

2. Situational Analysis:
2a Category Competitor Definition
Establishes the competitors for the product in the category of the product
in order to know who your competitors are.
2b Category Analysis
An analysis of the product category.
Contains 3 subdivisions
1. Aggregate market factors
Analysis of the category as a whole. While analyzing aggregate market
forces, category size ( in terms of revenue ), category growth, stage in
product life cycle, sales cyclicity (whether the category is unduly
affected by economic cycles), seasonality, and profits are done
2. Category factors
This is based on the Porters 5 forces model, and aims to understand
the threat of new
entrants and exits, bargaining power of suppliers
and buyers, pressure from substitute products, category capacity
( installed capacity, such that total capacity is not greater than
demand ), rivalry from competitors.
3. Environmental factors
An analysis of technological, political, economic, regulatory, and social
factors.
3. Company and Competitor Analysis:
Under this head, the marketing plan details the product features,
objectives, strategies, marketing mix, profits, value chain, differential analysis
and expected future strategies. Differential analysis or the resource analysis
aims to identify any advantages the company would have in terms of ability

to conceive and design new products, ability to deliver a service, ability to

market, ability to finance, ability to manage and the will to succeed in the
category.
Example:
Here we take the example of shampoo as a shopping product to explain role
of a product manager. The marketing plan is the key responsibility of the
product manager. He has to spend at least 45 days on planning while focusing
on one or more product lines.
In the hair care product category, the product manager will first evaluate the
total market size on terms of revenue, as well as its growth rate. The next
step would involve understanding extent of product penetration in the market
and understanding the barriers to growth in the market. For example, in India,
these barriers could include high prices deterring purchase in rural areas,
beliefs that shampoo contains harmful chemicals etc.
Overcoming these barriers to increase penetration is to be done next. One
example of how it was done was the introduction of the 50 paise sachet by
Chik. A product manager must also understand what aspects of a shampoo
are most important to the consumer, such as price, look and feel, benefits
offered etc. along with this, the product manager must also have an
understanding of the competitors and their products and marketing
strategies. These include HUL, P&G, and Dabur, CavinKare etc. to gain
insights into their strengths and weaknesses and develop the marketing plan
accordingly. Finally, the product manager must also gauge future trends and
groeth strategies and incorporate them into the marketing plan