Vusumuzi DubeJudith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) has urged its membership to move with the times and upscale their skills for strategic marketing perspective.
MAZ, which was established in 2007, is a membership driven body whose major mandate is to uplift the marketing profession.
MAZ marketing and operations head, Ms Enia Zimunya said marketers had to be abreast with global trends so as to remain relevant.
“As MAZ we offer professional development programmes and what we have noticed is that things change very fast, if you have done your marketing two years ago by the time you come now a lot of concepts are coming through.
“Let alone if you have done it 10 years ago you end up being extinct, so we always try by all means to bring programmes that upscale marketers and we urge our membership to keep up to date so that they move with the times,” said Ms Zimunya.
She said as an association, they were maximising efforts to ensure that marketers get the opportunity to develop their marketing and leadership skills.
Ms Zimunya said they were currently rolling out a lot of programmes that included development and networking which was critical for any business person and they had a lot of these networking opportunities.
She said they also provide programmes that include digital marketing which was very key and almost every marketer was looking for it.
“The programme is highly in demand, even other business entrepreneurs are also in need of it. Among other programmes that we do for PR is the Zimbabwe chartered marketer customer experience management just to make sure that the marketers are upscaled,” she added.
Commenting on the recently ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) 2022, Ms Zimunya said the association was exhibiting primarily for their members.
“We were quite confident that whosoever was manning an exhibition was either a marketing, PR practitioner or customer services. So, we always take advantage of the showcase to make sure that we get to meet with them, talk to them and make their experience better,” she added.
She said as MAZ they also host several events every year where they bring regional and local speakers to share ideas and experiences.
Ms Zimunya said as an association they appreciated their membership as marketing was one of the most difficult professions.
“If a company is going down the first function that gets interrogated is the marketing department. If there are any economic challenges that are happening whether in the economy or elsewhere, they affect the company but the marketing and sales department is answerable as to what are they doing to improve our bottom line.
“As a result of that, as MAZ we try by all means to make sure that our marketers are capacitated to handle the pressure but also to navigate and come up with strategies of coming out of whatever situation,” she said.
“So, we really appreciate our members and we hope they continue to develop the stamina to deal with whatever challenge they face in their industry and we will try by all means as MAZ to make sure that we give them a shoulder to lean on.”
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