One role of the purchasing department is to procure all

necessary materials needed for production or daily operation

of the company or government organization. For a
manufacturing company, this might include raw materials such
as iron, steel, aluminum or plastics, but it also might include
tools, machinery, delivery trucks or even the office supplies
needed for the secretaries and sales team. In a retail
environment, the purchasing department makes sure there is
always sufficient product on the shelves or in the warehouses
to keep the customers happy and keep the store well-stocked.
With a small business, it is especially important to keep
inventory ordering at a reasonable level; investing large
amounts of capital in excess stock could result in storage
problems and in a shortage of capital for other expenditures
such as advertising or research and development. Purchasing
also oversees all of the vendors that supply a company with
the items it needs to operate properly.

Evaluating Price
A purchasing department also is charged with continuously
evaluating whether it is receiving these materials at the best
possible price in order to maximize profitability. This can be
challenging for a small business that may purchase in lesser
quantities than a larger vendor and which thus may not receive
the same type of bulk discounts. A purchasing department in a
small business needs to shop around to find the best vendors at
the most reasonable prices for the company's particular size
orders. Purchasing department staff may communicate with
alternate vendors, negotiate better pricing for bulk orders or
 investigate the possibility of procuring cheaper materials from
alternative sources as part of their daily activities.

The Marketing Department plays a vital role in promoting the business and
mission of an organization. It serves as the face of your company, coordinating
and producing all materials representing the business. It is the Marketing
Department's job to reach out to prospects, customers, investors and/or the
community, and create an overarching image that represents your company in a
positive light—that is, your brand.

Depending on your company, the duties of the Marketing Department may

include one or more of the following:

 Defining and managing your brand. This involves defining who you are, what
you stand for, what you say about yourself, what you do and how your
company acts. This, in turn, defines the experience you want your customers
and partners to have when they interact with you.
 Conducting campaign management for marketing initiatives. Marketing
proactively identifies the products and services to focus on over the course of
your sales cycle, and then produces materials and communications that get
the word out.
 Producing marketing and promotional materials. Your marketing department
should create the materials that describe and promote your core products
and/or services, and keep them up-to-date as those products and services
evolve.
 Creating content providing search engine optimization for your website. Your
website is often the first (and possibly the only) place people go for
information about you. Your marketing department will be responsible for
keeping Web content current, while also working to ensure your site comes up
quickly when someone searches for your type of business.
 Monitoring and managing social media. Marketing should contribute to,
manage and maintain your social media pages and accounts and carefully
watch what’s being posted about you online.
 Producing internal communications. Your employees need to understand your
company, its values, its goals and its priorities. Marketing is often responsible
for employee communications through a newsletter and/or intranet.
 Serving as media liaison. When your company is cited in the media, a
member of the marketing department often acts as spokesperson for your
company, or guides executives in how to respond to media queries.
 Conducting customer and market research. Research helps you define target
markets and opportunities accordingly, and also helps you understand how
your products and services are perceived.
 Overseeing outside vendors and agencies. Marketing is typically responsible
for selecting and managing the agencies and vendors who produce marketing
materials and or/provide marketing support. These may include ad agencies,
print vendors, PR agencies or specialists, Web providers, etc.

Marketing is the most important parts of any business activity. It is what creates
customers and generates income, guides the future course of a business and defines
whether it will be a success or a failure. Without marketing, a business is like sitting in
the dark and expecting people to find you without a light. Marketing can be done without
a marketing team, but you cannot expect to go too far or succeed by marketing on your
own. For a sustained marketing effort, a business of any size requires a dedicated
marketing department or a marketing team.

In this article, we will explore the following: 1) concept of marketing, 2) organization

of a marketing department, 3) tools of marketing department, and
4) responsibilities of marketing department.


Tips on Increasing Grocery Store Sales
Whether in charge of a small, individually-owned grocery store or one that is part of a larger chain, managing a
grocery store successfully involves considerable responsibility. Grocery store managers must ensure that the
store runs smoothly, that items are priced competitively and that customers are satisfied. Having a thorough
understanding of key concepts involved in effective grocery store management is imperative for any manager
dedicated to the success of his store.
Inventory

Particularly if you manage a small grocery store, inventory requires more than simply keeping enough of every
item in stock. Customers regularly come into the store with requests for items, and you must determine
whether the cost of carrying that item is worth keeping a customer. Managers must study trends pertaining to
which items sell best in the store and which items sit on the shelves. Special inventory tracking systems
complete the analysis for managers, but they must decide what effect the data should have on regular ordering
and what items are kept in stock.

Merchandising

Store and department managers must make merchandising a focus of their job in order to increase sales.
Displays must be visually appealing and products you want to push should sit at eye-level and on end caps.
Commonly purchased items, such as milk and bread, should be placed near the back of the store to require
customers to pass by other product to get to them, usually adding items to their carts on the way. Work with
manufacturers to secure discounts on popular products in exchange for prime space in the store.

Coupons, Specials and Promotions

Coupons, specials and promotions draw customers into the store. As using coupons becomes a bigger trend,
managers must adjust ordering in order to meet demand. The store's coupon policies must be adjusted to avoid
losing large amounts of profit. Managers must carefully consider whether the number of customers a special or
promotion draws into the store will be offset by the money lost. A manager's special may draw customer
attention to a slow-moving item that would otherwise sit on a shelf, while heavily discounting a popular item
may only draw one-time customers into the store and significantly cut profits.

Scheduling

Scheduling may prove to be a challenge for managers. Managers must analyze traffic in the store to determine
key business hours. More employees should be scheduled during peak hours of the day to keep checkout lines
short and customer service centers fully staffed. If a customer regularly faces long lines at a grocery store, he
may take his business elsewhere. Managers must also hire reliable employees. If an employee regularly calls
off, the manager or another employee must pick up the shift
 INTRODUCTION
Concept of Marketing
Marketing can be described as any activity that is carried on with the specific purpose of
conveying information about the use, quality and value of a product or service in order
to promote or sell the product or service. Marketing is the way to announce the
availability of a commodity, service, idea or a brand to the world in such a way that
people are interested in it and wish to acquire it and use it. It serves the purpose of
plugging the gap between the public’s requirement and the products that are available.

Importance Of a Marketing
Department
The Marketing Department is the key to good marketing and sales. It promotes and
establishes a business in its niche, based on the products or services the business is
offering. It identifies the areas in which the product fits and where the business should
focus its marketing strategy and, therefore, spend its budget for the maximum coverage
and results. The marketing department helps a business to do the following:

 Build relationship with the audience: Creates awareness of the business and its products as
well as provide inputs that create interest for the audience. It brings in new customers and
creates new business opportunities for the enterprise.

 Involve the customer: It engages existing customers, tries to understand them and hear what
they have to say. It monitors the competition, creates new ideas, identifies outlets, plans the
strategy to involve customers and retain them.

 Generate income: Finally, the aim of the marketing department is to generate revenue. All its
activities are aimed at broadening the customer base and finding opportunities that would create
more revenue for the enterprise.

ORGANIZATION OF
A MARKETING
DEPARTMENT
The marketing department of any enterprise is responsible for promoting the products,
ideas and mission of the enterprise, finding new customers, and reminding existing
 customers that you are in business. It organizes all the activities that are concerned with
marketing and promotion. It may consist of a single person or a group of people working
in a hierarchal system who are responsible for bringing the product of the business to
the attention of its targeted customers. Since this department is the key to your revenue
and business activity, it requires people who have the skills for dealing with people and
understanding what they require.

There is no hard and fast rule to the organization of a marketing department, which
depends entirely upon the needs of the business, its size and the amount of money that
it wants to spend on marketing. But a typical marketing department in a large business
operation is organized as follows:

 Chief Marketing Officer: This is the person who is at the top of the pyramid and is in charge of
the marketing department. The responsibilities of CMO lie in the decision making within the
process of the development of the major marketing strategies, as well as running the marketing
department. CMO is also answerable to the Board of Directors or the Management about the
results of the marketing strategies.

 Marketing Director: The person in this role is responsible for all the marketing strategies that
are created and implemented. With his tasks he assists the CMO of the company.

 Vice President Marketing: He is answerable to the Marketing Director. His responsibility is the
implementation of the marketing strategies of the organization. He works with the marketing
manager in determining the strategies, messages, and media to be employed for marketing.

 Marketing Manager: Marketing Manager works under the vice president marketing and assists
him with the implementation of all marketing strategies including creating messages or
advertisements for marketing, choosing the medium of displaying the messages, which might
include print media, television, banners and hoarding, website and social media marketing, etc.
A marketing manager is also responsible for managing the other employees of the department.
There may be one or several marketing managers depending upon the size and requirements of
the business.

 Marketing Analyst or Researchers: These individuals are responsible for research and
analysis that drives the marketing department and guides its marketing strategies by finding out
about the target customers and the competition of the business. Marketing Analysts employ
marketing tools such as surveys or studies to discover information that may be useful for
marketing. They report to the marketing manager.

 Public Relations: Public Relation Officer is in charge of managing the reputation and goodwill
of the company. His job is to create understanding of the clients and try to influence their
thinking and behavior. PRO uses media management and communication to build up the
company’s profile. The PRO works under the Marketing Manager and reports to him.

 Social Media Expert/Creative services: With the internet becoming a major player in
marketing, a company benefits from the services of Social Media Experts (SME) and creative
services. While the SMEs concentrate on marketing the business and its service on the internet
so that more people become aware of it, the creative services take care of designing and
presentation part of the business, these include websites, web pages, brochures, booklets,
flyers, advertisements, mailers and e-mailers, and all other promotional material that is required
 by the marketing department. The creative services and social media marketing report to the
marketing manager and work under him.

 Marketing Coordinator: Coordinates all the various sections of the marketing department and
manages the advertising and marketing campaigns. Marketing Coordinator is responsible for
tracking sales data, maintaining the promotional material inventory, planning events, preparing
reports, etc. They work with the Marketing Manager and assist him.

 Marketing Assistant: Assists and reports to the marketing manager to run the day to day
business of a marketing department. Carries out administrative work required for the smooth
running of the department.
Depending on a company size, there might be implemented a hierarchical organization
of a marketing departments within a company.

What are the Key Roles of the Accounting Department?

While some people may have a differing opinion, the essential roles and duties of virtually any
accounting department should include the following:

 Money out – making payments and keeping the bills paid

 Money in – processing incoming payments
 Payroll – make sure everyone gets paid (including the government)
 Reporting – preparing financial reports, e.g. P&L, Balance sheets and budgets
 Financial Controls – to avoid errors, fraud and theft

Accounting Department Responsibilities in Detail

1. Accounts Payable (money out) – In order to maintain great relationships with vendors
making sure that everyone gets paid on time is a vital role. The role of the accounting
department includes keeping an eye on opportunities to save money, for example,
determining if there are discounts or incentives available for paying certain vendors more
quickly. At the very least, AP should be scheduled to assure that the least amount of
money has to go out per payment, i.e., no late payment charges!
2. Accounts Receivable and Revenue Tracking (money in) – Another critical duty of the
accounting department is to account for and track receivables, including outstanding
invoices and any required collection actions. Accounts receivable is responsible for
creating and tracking invoices. The responsibility here includes assuring that customers
pay those invoices on time, so a system of friendly reminders is crucial.
3. Payroll – Payroll is a critical function of the accounting department and includes making
sure all employees are paid accurately and timely. In addition, proper tax is assessed
and tax payments are on time with state and federal government agencies.
4. Reporting and Financial Statements – The primary reason you collect data properly in
your accounting software is to prepare financial reports that can be used for budgeting,
forecasting and other decision making processes. In addition, these and other reports
are needed for communication to investors, banks and other professionals that play a
role in the growth of your business.
5. Financial Controls – Financial controls include reconciliations, dividing the
responsibilities and following the GAAP standards of accounting principles, all of which
 are implemented with view toward compliance, fraud and theft prevention. The role of
the Controller is to ensure procedures are set up properly to manage that process
without errors.

Key Positions in an Accounting Department

Now that you know the roles of the accounting department, who are the key players. These are
the key positions that you’ll find across most business accounting units.
Chief Financial Officer (or CFO) – CFOs are typically the head financial executive of large
businesses. They oversee the financial strategy, health of the business, and manage the rest of
the financial department. CFO’s are very forward thinking and will help businesses navigate
through growth stages and downturns. With their knowledge of company finances, they help
senior management understand the financial impact of real-time decisions to ensure the fiscal
success of the business.
Their duties include financial planning, reporting and controls, short and long term business
strategy, investments, hedging, mergers and acquisitions, cash management, internal risk
management, corporate finance, auditing and accounting.
Financial Controller – Financial Controllers are key players within accounting departments and
work alongside CFO’s, COO’s, and Financial Directors. Their function and responsibilities
include financial accounting, preparation, reporting, analysis, budgeting, project management
and more. Their key role tends to focus on immediate financial issues and management.
Treasury Manager – The treasury manager’s role in the accounting department revolves
around the formulation and development of treasure policies. This includes identifying the best
investment opportunities, developing great banking relations, optimizing credit facilities, and
minimizing finance costs.
Accounting Manager – An accounting manager is responsible for a company’s accounting
activities that include maintaining and reporting on both the cost and financial sets of accounts
but does not handle or negotiate. The accounting manager establishes and enforces the
accounting principles based on statutory requirements and auditing policy.
Chief Accounting – The chief accountant holds the same responsibilities as the accounting
manager, but the role simply differs in terms of the job title.
Accounting Supervisor – Shares the same responsibilities as an accounting manager and
provides support as a member of his/her team.
Accountant – Accountants play a key role in finance departments such as the measurement
and interpretation of financial information. The results of their work ensure compliance, and
provide the groundwork for greater financial strategies.
Bookkeepers – Bookkeepers provide the day-to-day efforts needed to record and assess basic
accounting data. They typically do not take a strategic role.
These are just some of the main roles and functions of the accounting department in
businesses, there are many more responsibilities the accounting department is responsible for
and a number of subcategories. Those will depend upon the specific nature of your business.
For instance, inventory control and tracking, government forms and tax filings and fund raising
might be other essential areas of focus that your accounting department would be responsible
for.
Defining those responsibilities is essential for your business. While the specific roles may vary
from business to business, one thing is certain: if your accounting department does not perform
these key functions effectively and efficiently, you could be headed for some serious (and not so
pleasant) surprises.
The great news is that if these functions are covered well, you’ll find that your accounting
department creates a solid base and the most important measurement tool for your company’s
entire operation. If you think you need some help getting your accounting department in order,
or would like to outsource it (many companies prefer to do this!), then check out our Accounting
Services to learn more.

In many companies, marketing departments turn into a kind of catch-all: they do lots of
tasks that in most cases are not related in any way to each other.

A common situation is that a task arrives to the company and this question arises:

 Would this correspond to the purchasing department? No.

 Would this correspond to the sales department? No.
 Would this correspond to the accounting? No.
 Then this must be a task for the marketing department.

However, a company without a marketing department or at least a department in charge of

marketing is unconceivable. All companies are being aware that they need to get their
message to the client through the marketing department.

If it’s that important, how come ends up being a ‘does it all’ department? What are the real
duties of a marketing department?

In this post you’ll find 10 tasks that are the responsibility of the marketing department. All of
them have a crucial importance in ensuring the survival of your company.

# 1. Listening to customer needs

To establish a marketing strategy, it’s necessary to get closer to the clients and listen in order
to find out what their needs are. It’s a marketing department task, to plan the necessary
means for receiving customer feedback:

 Company Internal Channels: Create surveys or capture information of the sales

team and customer support (departments closest to the customer) that may be relevant
to enhancing or redirecting the marketing strategies in the future.
  Channels outside the company: Perform searches and create actions in social
networks that help to better understand the needs of users, in order to convert them
into customers.

# 2. Track trends and monitor competition

Similar to the previous point, it’s important to know the position of the company
reggarding the market and the competition. That’s why from marketing, you must watch
the competition to learn what they do best or to identify their mistakes in order to avoid
falling into them.

# 3. Work and transmit brand values

Conceptually, a brand is a representation of the feelings that the products, services and
company shares show. The marketing department is responsible for creating and
disseminating images, messages and ideas that best communicate the brand values.

Additionally, you must ensure that all company departments convey these messages in a
consistent and unified way.

# 4. Coordinate efforts with those of the marketing

partners of the company
Around the business’s marketing there are lots of contributors: publishers, designers,
journalists, consultants… The work of these contributors must be aligned with the objectives
of the company, and is the department itself who should control it to do so.

# 5. Innovate
Customers need to be surprised, and every day, given the higher offer, they are more
demanding with this. The marketing department should work on new promotions, affiliate
programs, customer retention techniques, improvements in the conversion of their messages
and actions…

It’s not a matter of inventing entirely different disruptive actions; you’ll find innovation in
the small details and in the continuous improvement.

# 6. Communicate with the rest of the company

A company is a chain of members pursuing a common goal: to fulfil its mission and
maximize its profits, while respecting the principles of business ethics.

A chain is as weak as its weakest link. It doesn’t matter that the commercial or production
department are doing an impeccable job, if the marketing department fails, the entire
company will fail and the efforts of other departments will be in vain. That is why the
marketing department must ensure that their actions are aligned with the overall objectives of
the company and that they report the work they are doing.

# 7. Help improve sales processes and customer

As mentioned above, it’s the responsibility of the marketing department to know the users
and especially the customers’ feelings.

A good way for better knowing the customer is that all departments that have more direct
contact with the customer shall be working with the empathy maps.

# 8. Manage marketing budgets

Like any other department, the marketing department should be able to plan its budget for the
next year’s activities, stretching it in order to make the most of it.

# 9. Calculate the ROI (Return Of Investment) of the

company’s actions
Marketing activities are an investment of time, money and effort. As an investment, every
action should be measured in order to check whether they meet the intended objectives
and in order to compare a certain action with others. Faced with questions as ‘should I
invest in telemarketing, social media, traditional media…?’ The answer is unique: measure
them all and choose based on the numbers.

# 10. Define strategic marketing plans

The most cost-effective strategies are those that are planned for the long term. To do so, you
must draft a document setting out the objectives to be achieved in the following months; the
actions that are to be undertaken; the strengths of the company; the competition; the target
markets… In addition, these strategic plans must also be aligned both with the strategic plan
of the company and with other departments’ plans.

At the end of the day, planning is the only way to achieve the set objectives.

The reality
By reading these 10 obligations, you’ll be thinking “how can I find time for that?”.

If you glance at what takes more time in your business, surely you’ll find that repetitive tasks
with little added value occupy the most. For this reason it’s important that you remove these
tasks from roots, otherwise you’ll fail to accomplish the tasks that a marketing
department should really dedicate it’s time to: reach, attract and retain customers.
 Hr department

Departments are the entities organizations form to organize people, reporting

relationships, and work in a way that best supports the accomplishment of the
organization's goals. Departments are usually organized by functions such as human
resources, marketing, administration, and sales.

But, you can organize a department in any way that makes sense to best serve your
customers. You can also organize departments by your customer, by product, or by
region of the world.

The forward-thinking human resource department is devoted to providing effective

policies, procedures, and people-friendly guidelines and support within companies.
Additionally, the human resource function serves to make sure that the
company mission, vision, values or guiding principles, the company metrics, and the
factors that keep the company guided toward success are optimized.

The most common Human Resource jobs that are grouped in the Human Resource
Department are the Human Resources Director, Human Resources Manager, Human
Resources Generalist, and Human Resources Assistant. Additionally, some
organizations have a Vice President of Human Resources.

Additionally, HR departments in larger organizations have employees who are

organized around providing a specific component of Human Departments are the
entities organizations form to organize people, reporting relationships, and work in a
way that best supports the accomplishment of the organization's goals. Departments
are usually organized by functions such as human resources, marketing,
administration, and sales.

But, you can organize a department in any way that makes sense to best serve your
customers. You can also organize departments by your customer, by product, or by
region of the world.

The forward-thinking human resource department is devoted to providing effective

policies, procedures, and people-friendly guidelines and support within companies.
Additionally, the human resource function serves to make sure that the
company mission, vision, values or guiding principles, the company metrics, and the
factors that keep the company guided toward success are optimized.
The most common Human Resource jobs that are grouped in the Human Resource
Department are the Human Resources Director, Human Resources Manager, Human
Resources Generalist, and Human Resources Assistant. Additionally, some
organizations have a Vice President of Human Resources.

Additionally, HR departments in larger organizations have employees who are

organized around providing a specific component of Human Resource services
including compensation, training, organization development, and safety. They have
titles such as Training Manager, Organization Development Consultant, and Safety
Coordinator.

Resource services including compensation, training, organization development, and

safety. They have titles such as Training Manager, Organization Development
Consultant, and Safety Coordinator.