Task: 1. Situation Analysis (450) 1.1. Analysing the external environment - macro • Political-legal factors • Economic factors • Sociocultural factors • Technological factors • The natural environment...

Task:

1.    Situation Analysis (450)


1.1.    Analysing the external environment - macro
•    Political-legal factors
•    Economic factors
•    Sociocultural factors
•    Technological factors
•    The natural environment – e.g., the ecological factors


1.2.    Analysing the external environment - industry
•    Market review - current market demand, market size, market growth rate, and market potential
•    Competition review - current and potential competitors and their positioning and customer value proposition
•    Customers – their profile, needs, and purchase behaviour
•    Distribution channel members
•    Suppliers


1.3.    Analysing the internal environment - organisation
•    Financial position
•    Structure, systems and processes
•    Skills


1.4.    Analysing the internal environment - marketing department
•    Marketing organisation and marketing management
•    Marketing intelligence generation and dissemination
•    Marketing strategies and current marketing performance – sales, margins, profit, market share, share metrics, share potential


1 Source: Adapted from Reed, P. 2015. Strategic marketing: Decision making & planning, 4ed., Cengage Learning, Australia

1.5.    Developing SWOT matrix
•    Strengths: Unique sources of advantage that the plan should leverage
•    Weaknesses: Circumstances that limit performance and should be addressed
•    Opportunities: Potentialities that would improve profitability and should be addressed
•    Threats: Current and possible factors that could impede performance


2.    Strategy development (600 words)


 2.1. Strategic positioning


Alternatives:
•    Cost leadership at an industry-wide level of competition
•    Cost leadership at niche of focus level of competition
•    Differentiation at an industry-wide level of competition
•    Differentiation at niche of focus level of competition


 2.2. Product-market strategies


Alternatives:


Market penetration – existing products in existing markets


Strategies for growing markets – e.g.:
•    Building market share (pursued by market leaders)
•    Increasing market demand (pursued by market leaders)
•    Winning the largest share of new customers (pursued by market challengers)
•    Winning the customers from the market leader and other competitors – e.g., for repeat purchases or replacement purchases (pursued by market challengers)


Strategies for competitively turbulent markets – e.g.:
•    Creating a low-cost position
•    Creating a differentiating position – e.g., superior quality, technology, customer service


Strategies for mature markets – e.g.:
•    Increasing customer retention
•    Increasing product usage rate
•    Market acquisition – converting non-users to users


Strategies for declining markets – e.g.:
•    Profitable survivor strategy to maximise market share (pursued by market leaders) – e.g., starting a price war; taking over or purchasing the operations of a weaker competitor
•    Harvesting strategy to minimise investments in the product - improving marketing and sales efficiencies; using more selective forms of distribution


Market development – existing products in new markets
•    Geographic expansion - domestic or international market expansion
•    New market segments – e.g., developing new applications or uses for existing products
•    New marketing channels – offline and/or online

Product development – new products in existing markets
•    Modifications or improvement to existing products for existing customers
•    Introducing new products within existing product lines for existing customers


Diversification – new products in new markets
•    Creating a new product or product line
•    Creating a new process or system or business model