Environmental scanning

Question 1

The Business Environment

Answer 1

Included internal and external factors that impact on how a company operates (does marketing)

Question 2

Define PESTLE

Answer 2

Political
Economic 
Social
Technology
Legal 
Environmental

Question 3

Stages of Environmental Analysis

Answer 3

1) Pestle (Macro-environmental)
2) Competition
3) Consumer (Stakeholder)
4) Company (Marketing audit)

Question 4

Fundamental idea of PESTLE

Answer 4

System to break down and list uncontrollable factors that shape the way in which organisations do business.

Question 5

How to undertake PESTLE

Answer 5

Provide a list of important areas for observation - Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental - and a structure to describe them in more detail according to the impact they may have on a firm. This approach allows you to highlight the potential issues, problems and phenomena worth studying.

Question 6

Example: UGG

Answer 6

• Sheepskin footwear manufacturer
• Had to content with restrictions impacting their ability to do e-marketing within regulatory framework
• Restrictions influenced customer perceptions - mental boundaries of acceptable practices

Research:

• How to adapt marketing messages to not fall foul of wall
• How to not alienate consumers

Investigation: Qualitative data via expert interviews and ethnographic research

Question 7

Define Micro-environment

Answer 7

The characteristics of the competitive environment that surrounds us

Question 8

Environmental Scanning - Beyond PESTLE

Answer 8

• Micro-environment
• Strategies and tactics of rivals
• Decisions by business (innovation, product development, revenue generation, pricing, customer satisfaction and people)

Question 9

Content Marketing

Answer 9

• Performance in this area is in the public domain
• Analysis of practices in this field can prove useful to realise effectiveness of particular programmes or activities within a small competitive set e.g. boutique hotels in specific location
• Effectiveness can be measured in: overall coverage on social media, reach via influencers, popularity of pages, traffic generated
• Must: Benchmark others, study industries - ‘borrow’ from others

Question 10

Marco and Micro Environmental Analysis

Answer 10

Marco: PESTLE
Micro: Competitive set

Question 11

The key relationship is marketing is not always between an organisation and its customers or consumers. Why?

Answer 11

Stakeholder theory: companies can create and share value through a variety of properly managed relations with suppliers, distributors, governments, local authorities, communities and so on. Recognise and study meaningful associations using a power-interest matrix, a tool that examines and analyses the potential influence on stakeholders (power) and their willingness to act on it (interest) (Mendelow, 1991).

Question 12

Impact of marketing resources (Presence or absence)

Answer 12

Internal analysis in the form of marketing audits is useful for spotting specific requirements as positive or negative associations for important areas like brand image, or the perceived quality of the service delivery (measured by assessing other parts of the marketing mix).