areer development and training component should guide the action that personnel takes to meet the future human resources needs of the overall business strategy. Current trends in HRMs paradigm shift involve looking at people expense as an investment in human capital. This involves looking at the businesss value chain and the value of human resource components along the various links in that chain. One of the results of this shift in perspective has been the downsizing phenomenon of the late 1980s and 1990s. While this has been traumatic for millions of employees in companies worldwide, its underlying basis involves an effort to examine the use of human capital to create value in ways that maximize the human contribution.1.3Functional Tactics in MarketingThe role of marketing function is to achieve the firms objectives by bringing about the profitable sale of the businesss products/services in target markets. Marketing tactics should guide sales and marketing managers in determining who will sell what, where, to whom, in what quantity, and how. Marketing tactics at a minimum should address four fundamental areas: products, price, place and promotion. The figure below highlights typical questions marketing tactics should address.Functional TacticTypical questions that the functional tactic should answerProduct (or service)Which products do we emphasize?Which products/services contribute most to profitability?What products/service image do we seek to project?What consumer needs does the product/service seek to meet?What changes should be influencing our customer orientation?PriceAre we competing primarily on price?Can we offer discounts or other pricing modifications?Are our pricing policy standards nationally, or is their regional control?What price segments are we targeting (high, medium, low)What is the gross profit margin?Do we emphasis cost/demand or competition-oriented pricing?PlaceWhat level of marketing coverage is necessary?Are t...
