The Role of Situation Analysis for a Marketing Plan
Situation analysis becomes increasing important for a marketing plan development. This essay aims to explain why it is so important and what factors it focus on and finally, a guild list is present and justify for the construction of an effective situation analysis for a Marketing Plan of J Boag & Son Brewery.
Analyzing situation prior a strategic decision is critical for generating or sustaining competitive advantages, especially when facing the dynamic environmental trend which can affect corporations’ performance positively or negatively. The main task for a situation analysis is to explore the external factors (that can imply what opportunities a firm should seize and what threats it has to pay caution to) and internal factors (that can tell what a firm can do to develop its strengths and to avoid its weaknesses). And as Sally, Lyndon & John (1996: 3) defined, the terminal object of a marketing plan is to achieve particular marketing strategy. And a marketing strategy, which expressed clearly by Subash (2004: 26), requires a corporation using its relative corporate strengths to better satisfy customer needs and finally achieve maximum positive differentiation over its competitors in a numbers of internal and external variables. While Malcolm (2006: 376) concluded that the main concern of a strategic marketing plan is to establish, defend and maintain competitive advantage. However, the market environment today is changing quickly, followed by the increasing keen competition. To maintain a certain competitive advantage is impossible in such situation and the only way to earn above-average return is to react rapidly with updated information from environmental scanning. Thus, no matter what the purpose of a marketing plan is, situation analysis is crucial to provide an overall understanding of existing competitive position, organizational capabilities and market trends which is ever-changing.
For example, soused from Malcolm (1989: 75), a company found itself
Analyzing situation prior a strategic decision is critical for generating or sustaining competitive advantages, especially when facing the dynamic environmental trend which can affect corporations’ performance positively or negatively. The main task for a situation analysis is to explore the external factors (that can imply what opportunities a firm should seize and what threats it has to pay caution to) and internal factors (that can tell what a firm can do to develop its strengths and to avoid its weaknesses). And as Sally, Lyndon & John (1996: 3) defined, the terminal object of a marketing plan is to achieve particular marketing strategy. And a marketing strategy, which expressed clearly by Subash (2004: 26), requires a corporation using its relative corporate strengths to better satisfy customer needs and finally achieve maximum positive differentiation over its competitors in a numbers of internal and external variables. While Malcolm (2006: 376) concluded that the main concern of a strategic marketing plan is to establish, defend and maintain competitive advantage. However, the market environment today is changing quickly, followed by the increasing keen competition. To maintain a certain competitive advantage is impossible in such situation and the only way to earn above-average return is to react rapidly with updated information from environmental scanning. Thus, no matter what the purpose of a marketing plan is, situation analysis is crucial to provide an overall understanding of existing competitive position, organizational capabilities and market trends which is ever-changing.
For example, soused from Malcolm (1989: 75), a company found itself
References: George, S. D., 1999. Market Driven Strategy: Processes for Creating Value. New York, the Unites States of America: Free Press Malcolm, H.B. 1989. Marketing Plans: How to prepare them: How to use them. Jordan Hill, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Malcolm, M. 2006. Strategic Marketing Planning: Theory and Practice1. The Marketing Review, 4: 375-418 Reed, P. 2003. Strategic Marketing Planning. Australia: Thomson. Sally, D., Lyndon S., & John, B., 1996. The Marketing Planning Workbook: Effective Marketing for Marketing Managers. London: Routledge Subash, J. 2004. Marketing: Planning & Strategy. Belmont CA, Australia: Cengage South Western.