Week 2 Reflection: Analysing the Business Environment
The business environment is crucial for a businesses’ success and it determines the most effective and efficient marketing strategies a business can employ. The immediate environment consists of the business, competitors, corporate partners and most importantly; consumers. In my experience at a fast food business, I have found that the immediate environment directly affects the marketing strategies businesses choose to use because, ultimately, the aim of a strategy is to attract consumers effectively and efficiently. I also recognised that at McDonalds, where i work, they and corporate partners engage to make strategies more effective and create competitive advantage over a marketplace.
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Demographics, culture, social, economic, technology, political and legal elements make up what is considered the macro environment. Decisions need to be made strategically to be successful, so research is crucial for a business to understand their macro-environment. I have noticed that, increasingly, companies in present times are becoming more and more aware of their macro-environment. For example, at McDonalds, they place great emphasis on their work with local community and how they help them. This appeals to social and cultural elements of the macro-environment, because they recognise the importance of engaging with the macro environment. Social trends and generational cohorts also shape the ways marketers make strategies, as these are factors that greatly influence consumers when they make decisions and judgments. I have noticed that businesses will often appeal to both of these factors to express messages to the public, for example, environmental concerns are a social trend that is becoming increasingly popular among younger generations. So, marketers will use techniques to attract younger generations into becoming more concerned with the welfare of our …show more content…
Customer loyalty is something businesses strive for, as it is less cost efficient for businesses to gain new customers and loyal customers will only buy from certain brands. Customer loyally also can help the positive spread of word of mouth, thus expanding the businesses’ reputation and status.
Customer loyalty occurs from purchase satisfaction and marketers will attempt to strengthen the relationship through several methods. Social media can be used as a tool to manage consumer relationship, as marketers are able to directly communicate and assist with any issues or concerns. Marketers are able to spread messages, thus influence consumers opinion to become the business that is in their evoked set. More traditional methods of ensuring customer loyalty can include free extended warranties or bonus benefits to those who are regular customers or long time consumers. This will create and extend customer relationship to the
Every company has internal and external forces that effect how they operate within the community in which they are located and also within their own walls. These internal and external forces play a strong impact on the company’s profitability and success. These forces have an effect on what consumers they attract or ignore and how they are perceived by those who have the buying power. A mistake any analyzing and implementing measures to assist with these factors could greatly affects a company’s bottom line and success. This is why any company wanting to grow and be successful will need to take all of these forces; sociocultural, technological, economic, environmental and political-legal into consideration in creating their strategic plan.
Implementing factors provides an overall corporate strategy meaning, helping an organisation strive towards achieving company goals (Thomas, 2013). To develop new strategies, market research would have to be carried out both from primary and secondary sources about what consumers would favour in terms of product and service provision (Ebert, Griffin, 2011). Therefore, a market orientated culture is integrated in businesses to focus solely on customers opinions of their products and services to gain a competitive advantage( Slater and Narve, 1995).Market orientation has a direct correlation with improving performances of companies, due to a central role of customers, helping develop existing strategies (Slater and Narve, 1995). Furthermore, demographic and geographic variables could help businesses decide which area is a priority to co...
Customer loyalty comes from the personal relationship that is developed between the customer and the business. One method used to understand the customer relationship is called customer relationship intensity and Life-cycle segmentation (UOP, 2007). This process includes classifying all the customer relationships into one of five groups.
Strive to earn customers’ long-term loyalty by working to deliver more than promised, being honest and fair to provide exceptional personalized service that creates a pleasing business experience.
This paper will discuss the five environmental factors that influence global and domestic marketing decisions that organizations must make. These five environmental factors are technology, demographics, government, culture and economics. Companies are affected differently by these factors depending on the industry they are in and the size of the organization. I will be using the Washington Plaza Hotel to illustrate how these environmental factors affect the hotel industry's marketing decisions. The Washington Plaza Hotel is a hospitality business located in Washington, DC. They offer services such as lodging, restaurant, bar, catering and meeting space rental. The Washington Plaza Hotel's major customer base is government, tourist, non-profit organizations, local businesses and some corporate clientele. Let's now take a look at how these environmental factors affect the marketing of the hotel.
High levels of customer satisfaction will not guarantee future sales, but are more likely to result in repeat future sales than indifferent or poor customer service. Moreover, satisfied customers are more likely to try out other products/services in the firm’s range, or recommend it to friends and family. Build on customer loyalty Customer loyalty is valued highly by most businesses and can be
In today’s world, consumers have more choice than ever before. The consumers also have growing expectations of retailers. To gain the consumers loyalty, they are trying to understand them better than anyone else
Scholars and researchers characterize the business environment as dynamic (Nieuwenhuizen & Rossouw, 2008). This is because; the business environment is not static but ever changing. The changes in the business environment are fuelled by the changing preferences and tastes of consumers. Changes in consumer preference of products and services drive the institutions and organizations to a sequence of unending research and development. Institutions invest a substantial amount of their resources in research and development in an effort to meet the demands of the market. By so doing, institutions gain the abilit...
Close to the Customer: Customer satisfaction is very important throughout all the roles that the business plays. Many companies forget about their customers, whereas successful companies have an obsession with their customers. Excellent product quality and reliability will make a satisfied customer. Great service will keep the customer coming back.
An essential element of developing a marketing strategy and marketing plan is an understanding of customer needs and wants (including what customers want regarding environmentally friendly products) and the marketing environment. In order to fully understand the marketing environment, organizations must analyse, the immediate environment and the macroenvironment (encompassing, amongst other aspects, changing social, cultural and legal trends).
In general, I consider my greatest strength in the case study tutorials to be a confidence and willingness to contribute, which is certainly something I have struggled with in the past (during A levels, etc.). Having gained experience in group work and in leading a group project in my foundation year at Keele, I now find it far easier to speak up in these situations. I consider myself to generally be a very quiet person, so it has taken a lot of development to get to the point where I am able to speak out loudly and clearly. I am pleased with what I have achieved in this regard.
This summer’s course in ‘Business and Society’ was a great opportunity for me to learn more about myself, my perspective of business, the role of government in society, policy makers and most importantly the views of the stakeholders. For the spring semester gone and this summer session almost all classes were tied into my major, giving me a better understanding on what I want out of my degree. My major here at Marymount Manhattan College is Finance and this class has surely helped me in figuring out, the workings of ‘big business’ and its impact on stakeholders. This course has helped me understand why many laws, at one point to me sounded absurd, but are in place to protect both industry and stakeholder. I never thought communication was such a priority in the business world until taking this class. From newly learnt material I see communication as a
The factors that have a great influence on marketing management, marketers’ business decision-making, and their relationship with customers include macro- and micro-environment, and the latter in turn includes the concept of so-called “4 P’s” (i.e., product, place, promotion, and price). Micro-environment is also referred to as “immediate environment” and stands for the factors that are literally “close” to a certain company: its suppliers, customers, intermediaries (e.g., advertising agencies), and competitors (“Marketing environment,” n.d.) Four P’s are also called “the marketing mix,” and their most widely used interpretation belongs to McCarthy (Blythe, 2008). The marketing mix indicates the four aspects of how to make your business profitable and yourself proficient as a marketing specialist. As Cannon (1992) pointed out, “The marketing mix is the set of controllable variables that the firm can use to influence the buyer’s response.” First, the business person needs to understand what the product of consumer’s desire is. It is obvious that “an undesired product” will not be sold. Producers, however, may invent something that consumers even did not expect to have but really wanted, at least, unconscious...
Customer Relationships is about building a relationship of trust and convenience. A customer wants the company they are working with to be intuitive. To know their needs before they do. They want to feel respected, they need to believe you are honest and have integrity. This relationship breeds comfort and familiarity and causes the consumer to continue to do business with your company. This relationship that is built develops a personal relationship, like a friendship and it is one that the consumer cannot get from the store down the road and it is that personal touch of sincerity, of knowing their needs, of servitude that will turn them into lifelong branded customers.
There are many description and theory of customer loyalty. We should research and compare which theory is suitable for our business.