subject: Considering Career In Sales And Marketing [print this page] The main objective a firm has is to promote and sell its products and services to prospects. To do this job, the firm requires a team of an individuals who take care of sales and marketing activities, along with promotion of the products, market research, pricing, product development, advertisement and public relation. To carry out the tasks properly by a team of marketing personnels, Sales and Marketing Manager is appointed. A sales and marketing manager develops detailed marketing strategies for the firm he works in. The strategy also involves an analysis on the demand of their product in the market, knowing their competitors and what strategies they are using to sell their services and finding potential markets such as wholesalers, retailers, government or common public. The aim of a sales and marketing manager is to increases the firm's market share and profits by developing effective pricing strategies, all while maintaining customer satisfaction.
To make a career in sales and marketing, a management course in sales and marketing is being taught as a part of MBA curriculum at business schools. So, completing a two-years course in MBA is the first step to become a successful sales and marketing person. MBA is a two years full course done after graduation. The process of admission in MBA is done on the basis of a written test, followed by group discussion and personal interview. Though, there is a common test conducted for most of the MBA institutes who accept admissions on the basis of its score. Otherwise, separate tests are conducted by every institute like CAT by IIMs, XAT by Xavier Institutes, or MAT by All India Management Associations, etc. A few institutes like IIFT, S P Jain or FMA, etc., conduct their own set of exams. Apart from these, executive MBA (Sales & Marketing) programmes is offered by some institutes that ask for few years of work experience.
Institutes Offering
Under MBA programme, several institutes in India offer MBA (Sales & Marketing) as specialized study. The Indian Institute of Management (Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode and Shillong) are among the top business schools that offer MBA courses in India. Some other top B-schools also offer this course include Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar; Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University; Jamaal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai; S. P. Jain Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai; Management Development Institute, Gurgaon; Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai; Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune.
Career Prospects of Sales and Marketing
The functions of Sales and Marketing go hand in hand. The function of sales is about assessing and fixing sales targets and working out strategies and implementing them. Their work involves appointing distributors and structuring sale outlets. Whereas marketing involves planning of strategy to deliver goods and services efficiently and inexpensively to the customer. Every industry requires Sales and Marketing Managers whether its a manufacturing, finance and insurance or retail and wholesale trade. Sales and marketing managers are supposed to hold almost half of the jobs of a company. It is a known fact that almost one-third of marketing managers belong to manufacturing industries or work in scientific, technical and professional services as well as in advertising, publishing, and other information industries. The majority of public relations managers work in services industry, professional educational, scientific, technical services, health care, insurance and social assistance services.
Remuneration
As an MBA graduate, Sales & Marketing Manager gets Rs 20000 to Rs 30000 starting salary per month particularly in private sector. In public sector, the pay scale is lower than that of private sector. The pay scale may go up depending upon ability and experience of the person concerned. At a senior level, an MBA graduate with Sales & Marketing as specialization can well go up to Rest 50000 to Rest 1,50,000 per month.
