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Careers
Marketing is a highly dynamic field with a variety of careers available to professional practitioners. These career areas include product and brand management, international marketing, advertising and marketing communication, retailing, logistics and distribution, marketing research, e-commerce, and personal selling. Often marketing career paths may lead to positions in upper-level corporate management. For example, Steve Balmer, the CEO of Microsoft, has a marketing background.
Marketing graduates can find jobs not only within the marketing and sales functions in an organization, but also in specialized marketing organizations such as advertising agencies, marketing consulting, market research agencies, and syndicated research suppliers.
Indeed, business leaders throughout the world regard marketing as critical since it is directly responsible for customer relationships that lead to profit. Marketing managers identify customers in as much detail as possible, they determine the needs of the customers, and they determine how the organization can best satisfy those needs.
Marketing managers may be involved in a variety of functions including the design of products, the development of pricing and advertising strategies, and the construction of procedures for product distribution. Entrepreneurs who start their own businesses also benefit from knowledge of marketing in developing consumer- or business-oriented strategies.
Virtually all industries and organizations-profit and non-profit-depend on marketing, whether they market to household or business-to-business consumers. Whatever career path one chooses, a background in marketing helps one to think both strategically and tactically; it helps one to understand consumers; and it helps one to develop appropriate business models. Finally, and not to be overlooked, a career in marketing can provide a high degree of both personal satisfaction and professional development.