Download Chapter 3 – analysing the market environment

Chapter 3 – analysing the market environment
Objective 1: Describe the environmental forces that affect the company’s
ability to serve its customers
Key terms: Marketing environment, microenvironment, macroenvironment, marketing
intermediaries, public
- Microenvironment consists of actors close to the company that combine to form its value
delivery network / affect its ability to serve its customers.
- Includes the company’s internal environment
- Marketing channel firms cooperate to create customer value
- Competitors oppose to the company in order to serve customers better
- Various publics have an actual interest in the company’s ability to meet its objectives
- 5 types of customer markets include: consumer, business, reseller, government and
international markets.
- The macroenvironment consists of larger societal forces that
affect the entire microenvironment. The six forces making up the
company’s macroenvironment include demographic, economic, natural, technological,
political, social and cultural forces.
à shape opportunities and pose threats to the company
Objective 2: Explain how changes in the demographic an economic
environments affect marketing decisions.
Key words: Demography, baby boomers, generation X, millennials, Economic environment
- Demography: study of the characteristics of human populations today’s demography
shows:
à changing age structure
à Shifting family profiles
à geographic population shifts
à better-educated and more white-collar population
à increasing diversity
- Economic environment made up of factors that affect buying power and patterns
- economic environment is characterized by more prudent consumers:
à seek greater value: right combination of good quality and service at a fair
price
- Distribution of income is also shifting: rich have grown richer, middle class shrunk, poor
remained poor
Objective 3: Identify the major trends in the firm’s natural and technological
environments
Key words: Natural environment, environmental sustainability, technological environment
- Natural environment shows 3 major trends:
 shortages of certain raw materials
 higher pollution levels
 more government intervention in natural resource management
- Environmental concerns create marketing opportunities for alert companies
- Technological environment creates both opportunities and challenges
- Companies that fail to keep up with technological change à miss out on new product
and marketing opportunities.
Objective 4: Explain the key changes in the political and cultural
environments
Key words: political environment, cultural environment
- Political environment consists of
 laws
 agencies
 groups that influence or limit marketing actions
- Political environment has undergone 3 changes that affect marketing world wide:
 Increasing legislation regulating business
 Strong government agency enforcement
 Greater emphasis on ethics and socially responsible actions
- The cultural environment consist of
 Institutions
 Forces that affect a society’s values, perceptions, preferences and behaviours
- Environment shows trends toward a lessening trust of institutions, increased patriotism,
greater appreciation for nature, changing spiritualism and the search for more
meaningful and enduring values
Objective 5: Discuss how companies can react to the marketing environment
- Companies can passively accept the marketing environment as an uncontrollable
element to which they must adapt avoiding threats and taking advantage of
opportunities as they arise
- They can take a proactive stance, working to change the environment rather than
simply reacting to it.
- Companies should be proactive rather than reactive
2