In business administration, marketing is part of the entire business process. It begins with the planning of the concept, followed by the purchase of raw materials and preliminary products (inputs), continues with production (creation of goods or services) and ends with the marketing (marketing or sales) of the created business services. In addition, there are support processes such as innovation, financing, administration or personnel management. Sub-processes are also called transactional or entrepreneurial functions. Management functions are necessary to ensure that all processes run as smoothly as possible. These include planning (including goal setting), organization, management and control (monitoring success and progress) in relation to goal setting. The marketing process itself can be represented as a marketing plan: Identifying opportunities through market, customer and competitive analysis, including market research, setting goals to ensure a return on investment, selecting the appropriate strategies to achieve the goals, implementing the strategy using the marketing mix and finally monitoring the success of the entire process and all decisions made. The topic of marketing has gained great importance in science and practice since the mid-1950s due to the transition from the war economy to the so-called affluent society (supply is greater than demand). This trend was accompanied by increased competition for customers and was further intensified by two oil crises in the 1970s. For example, the first marketing department (Heribert Meffert) was founded in Germany in 1969. Since then, marketing has been regarded as the central success factor for the long-term „survival“ of companies in competition (dominant marketing function). The diagram on the right is intended to illustrate the relationship between marketing and other corporate functions.