Macroenvironment
The broader forces that affect not only the company but also the other actors in the microenvironment.
PESTEL: Political, Economic, Social, Tech, Ecological, Legal.
Microenvironment
The actors in the firm’s immediate environment that affect its capability to serve its markets.
Suppliers, Distributors, Customers, Competitors.
Environmental Scanning
The process of monitoring and analyzing the marketing environment.
Identifying "weak signals" of coming change.
Demographics
The study of human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race, occupation, etc.
Aging population = opportunity for pharma/travel.
Porter's Five Forces
A framework for analyzing the level of competition within an industry.
Rivalry, New Entrants, Substitutes, Buyer Power, Supplier Power.
Barriers to Entry
Factors that make it difficult for new companies to enter an industry.
High capital costs, economies of scale, patents.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
The ethical principle that an organization should be accountable for how its behavior affects society and the environment.
Reducing carbon footprint, fair trade sourcing.
Retrenchment
A response to environmental change involving efficiency improvements and cost-cutting to delay strategic change.
"Sticking to what we know" while cutting overheads.
Radical Strategic Repositioning
A response to environmental change involving a fundamental change in the direction of the business.
A typewriter company switching to make computers.
Economic Forces
Factors that affect consumer purchasing power and spending patterns.
Inflation, recession, exchange rates.
Marketing Audit
A systematic examination of a firm’s marketing environment, objective, strategies, and activities
Internal Audit: Focuses on areas under the control of marketing management (e.g., sales figures, market share, operational effectiveness)
External Audit: Focuses on Forces over which management has no control (macroeconomic and microeconomic environments)
Competitive Advantage (Porter’s Generic Strategies)
Differentation: Providing superior customer value through unique features, branding, or service (e.g., emotional value, performance value)
Cost Leadership: Achieving the lowest delivered cost in the industry. This allows the firm to compete on price (e.g., Ryanair)
Strategic Objectives
Once the thrust is decided, you must set objectives for individual products.
Build: Increase sales/market share (often at the expense of short-term profit)
Hold: Maintain market share (Typical for “Cash Cows”)
Harvest: Maximize profit margins while letting market share slowly fall (typical for declining products)
Divest: Drop or sell the product
Last changed8 days ago