The financial management and administration area is responsible for controlling and managing the economic resources a company needs to carry out its planned activities with the necessary guarantees.
In retail, commercial and marketing strategies are aimed at generating value (financial returns, brand image, product perception, and so on). For this reason, these areas must control the financial outlook and management of those commercial strategies.
Controlling the commercial strategy:
Controlling the commercial strategy aims to confirm that the marketing plan is being carried out, verifying that the objectives set within it are being met.
The control process involves measuring the results of the actions taken, assessing the degree to which the planned objectives are being met, and putting corrective measures in place.
The commercial control system must act on objectives that are directly attributable to commercial activities and that can be quantified.
Annual plan control: checking that the expected results are being achieved. This is done by analyzing sales, market share, and so on.
Profitability control: determining profitability by product, territory, customer, and so on.
Efficiency control: its purpose is to evaluate and improve the impact of commercial spending.
Strategic control: this means understanding whether the organization is capturing its opportunities in terms of markets, products, and distribution channels.
The commercial audit makes it possible to identify underused commercial resources and generates recommendations for putting them to better use. In this way, market knowledge grows, management flexibility increases, and so on.
Marketing must be systematic, comprehensive, independent, and regular. Systematic, because it should follow an ordered sequence of diagnostic stages; comprehensive, because every factor that influences marketing performance must be analyzed; independent, because to ensure objectivity the audit should preferably be carried out by people external to the organization; and regular, because it should be scheduled at consistent intervals.
It is made up of six components:
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Environment audit: covering both the microenvironment and the task environment.
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Strategy audit: analyzing whether the strategy is well focused on the problems and opportunities the company faces.
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Organization audit: studying how effective the commercial organization is, as well as how marketing relates to the company’s other functions.
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Systems audit: studying the information, planning, and control systems for commercial activity.
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Productivity audit: determining where profits are being made and whether or not commercial costs can be reduced.
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Functions audit: verifying the overall performance of the marketing functions.