MARKETING ENVIRONMENT
Learning Objectives
• Describe the environmental forces that affect the company’s ability to serve its customers. • Explain how changes in the demographic and economic environments affect marketing decisions. • Identify the major trends in the firm’s natural and technological environments. • Explain the key changes that occur in the political and cultural environments. • Discuss how companies can react to the marketing environment.
Textbook / Reference
• Armstrong G & Kotler P (2005) Marketing: An Introduction, 7th Edition, Prentice Hall.
• Adcock, Halborg & Ross (2001) Marketing Principles and Practice, 4th Edition, Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Introduction
A company’s marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside marketing that affect marketing management’s ability to develop and maintain successful relationships with its target customers. Being successful means being able to adapt the marketing mix to trends and developments in this environment. Changes in the marketing environment are often quick and unpredictable. The marketing environment offers both opportunities and threats. The company must use its marketing research and marketing intelligence systems to monitor the changing environment. Systematic environmental scanning helps marketers to revise and adapt marketing strategies to meet new challenges and opportunities in the marketplace. The marketing environment is made up of a micro-environmental and a macro-environment.
The micro-environment consists of six forces (actors) close to the company that affect its ability to serve its customers:
• The company itself (including departments). • Suppliers. • Marketing channel firms (intermediaries). • Customer markets. • Competitors. • Publics.
The macro-environment consists of the larger societal forces that affect the