Introduction
Marketing has evolved through a change in production and consumption due to the advent of new technology (Ranchhod, 2004). The development of technology has also driven the globalisation of communication. During this period, consumers are facing a variety of choices (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). Thus, companies need to actively embrace these changing factors to grow their business and succeed in the marketplace.
The marketplace has been dynamic and competition between companies in the same industry has been increasingly intense (Ranchhod, 2004). Having dynamic capabilities contributes to a company’s “long-term survival or competitive advantage” (Johnson et al., 2008: 84). This is especially essential for rich heritage company, such as Aquascutum. It should not only have strategic capability, but also dynamic capability, which requires renewing and recreating its strategic capabilities to reach the demand of current environment (Johnson et al., 2008).
Moreover, the market has been shifted from product orientation to customer orientation. This requires companies to become more ‘customer-centric’ (Deshpande, 1999). With the development of Internet and wireless communication technologies, a profound consumer communication revolution has been in progress, which challenges companies to create new channels of communications (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). Company can reward customers’ involvement in order to encourage them to promote the company and the brand. Media is the new innovation (Jackson and Shaw, 2009).
This paper will analyse Aquascutum’s current underperformance and suggest some recommendations to its future development. Section I will explore the brand’s history and current situation of underperformance.
Section II and section III will evaluate the struggling factors from two perspectives. Specifically, section II will focus on the external environment of the company by using a PESTEL analysis (Johnson et al.,
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