A firm has to market an athletic shoe product line that it o

A firm has to market an athletic shoe product line that it orders from its factories. Which decisions on the Production and Labor screens are critical to coordinate with the firm\'s marketing strategy? Why?

Solution

To accomplish the task of marketing an athletic shoe line following are the coordination which have to take place between marketing department, production and labor (HR).

1. Marketing department: The first task of marketing dept. shall be to go out in the market and conduct a user based survey about what is the preference and needs of the end user in terms of the prospective products. The various insights have to be drawn in terms of color, shape, weight, type, cost, brand and the competitors. The analysis shall result in a report and a design shall be produced by designing team which should coincide with all the specification described by the market survey report.

2. Production department: The department shall be required to produce the designed product with operational efficiency and lower costs in order to generate less waste. For this, necessary modifications have to be done in the existing product line. The marketing and production department have to work hand in hand so that user needs can be fulfilled. The first prototype and further first few products have to be designed in order to be test marketed among the test users. The recommendations and modifications sought by them have to be incorporated again in the design and hence in the production line.

3. Labor: The HR department has to hire the labor which is flexible enough to work as per the changing needs/ instructions of the marketing-production alliance. Also HR dept. needs to hire highly skilled labor, be it design employees, marketing research experts or low level production workers, so that they are able to deliver as per the needs of the end user and hence become profitable for the company.