The Marketing Planning syllabus, which is part of the Professional
Diploma stage is divided into four major areas:
1 The marketing plan in its organisational and wider marketing context
2 Marketing planning and budgeting
3 The extended marketing mix and related tools
4 Marketing in different contexts
The CIM has designed their syllabus around the statements of marketing
practice, which were developed by the Standard Setting Body for market-
ing under the direction of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. These
statements identify the practical tasks that marketers undertake within
their marketing career. These standards are available on the CIM website
(www.cim.co.uk).
This textbook includes important strategic theory, some of which is not
specifically included within the Marketing Planning syllabus, however,
this does add further understanding for the student and thus goes beyond
this syllabus. Also it is not the intention of this text to cover the theory relat-
ing to the marketing mix elements, as this is available in most fundamen-
tal marketing texts. However, the Marketing Planning syllabus requires
candidates to be able to discuss the operationalisation of their marketing
planning decisions using the marketing mix and so students should ensure
that they have this knowledge also.■ Links with other papers
The Marketing Planning syllabus was developed to provide the key skills
and knowledge required by an operational marketing manager. This mod-
ule replaced the ‘Marketing Operations’ module in the old CIM Advanced
Certificate. It aims to prepare marketers for practice at management level
and does consider operational issues as well as strategic marketing deci-
sions. The general basis of this module is the marketing planning function
and the implications for the operational decisions. However, as many
organisations today are small- or medium-sized businesses, the marketing
planning process is undertaken at a lower level of management than in
larger multi-national organisations as cited in many other text books.
Therefore, the Marketing Planning module acts as a central base for the
other CIM modules to build upon at the Professional Diploma (QCA level
6) and also is very much required for Postgraduate Diploma (QCA level 7)
underpinning theory for this higher level of study.
This text will provide students with an understanding of the nature of
strategic marketing decisions and the marketing decision process. This
text covers key elements of the syllabus (such as forecasting, control
mechanisms and budgeting) which are not covered well in other text
books on the market and so is of major benefit to all students studying for
this examination. Indeed, these are the areas of the syllabus which tend
not to be taught well and consequently students do not perform well inxii Preface