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Because markets are often unpredictable, successful marketing is rather like hitting a moving target. Consumer tastes vary depending on fashions and trends, causing the demand for products to fluctuate with alarming frequency. It is because of this uncertainty that we need to analyse and know as much as we can about customers and markets, and also about our own businesses.
blot all marketplace opportunities are real opportunities for every business. Only those which a business can successfully exploit -- those which match its capabilities -- come into this category. The process of analysing marketing opportunities therefore begins with an internal analysis of a business itself -- a process which must include not only the specifically market-related aspects of its operations, such as sales and advertising, but also other aspects, such as financial resources, work-related aspects of its operations, such as sales and advertising, but also other aspects, such as financial resources, work-force skills, technology and so on. A useful framework for undertaking this internal analysis is to divide these aspects into four areas: customers, sales, marketing activities and other factors. We must determine who the business’s customers are, how many there axe and what their requirements are. We must then estimate how many products the business can be expected to sell in order to determine what product development will be required. Product development includes market research, which is vital to ensure that the business’s products are right for the market, and to enable the business to set pricing and discount policies which will maximise sales. Finally, we must examine how all of these factors relate to other aspects of the business that may affect sales levels, such as management and work-force skills and corporate goals.
Having carefully analysed these internal factors, it is time to look at the outside world. An external analysis also needs to examine carefully a wide range of areas -- such as legal/political factors; economic factors; cultural/social factors; technology; institutions and competition There may be restrictions on the production or sale of particular products: for example, the age restrictions that exist in many countries on the sale of alcohol; and tobacco will obviously influence the size of the market for these products. Rising or falling interest rates affect people’s disposable income, and may alter demand and therefore market size. Development of the society and its population, and how people’s requirements will he affected, must also be considered. New technologies may affect both people’s expectations and other products that are likely to become available. Consequently it may be expected that traditional, social and economic institutions will alter over time, so that people may no longer buy, sell and distribute products in traditional ways through wholesalers and retail outlets; instead they will order products from home using the latest computer and cable television technology. And lastly, we must consider any potential competition from other businesses at home or overseas which produce similar products, and whether or not our business would be able to remain profitable even with this competition.
Identifying the competition is in many respects the most important aspect of an external market analysis and, to be useful, it must be as objective as possible. Many marketers greatly overestimate or underestimate the competition that their business will face from other businesses, especially if they look at the competition from their own standpoint rather than seeing it through the eyes of their customers. In other words, many people identify competitors by looking at apparently similar products, how they are made and what features they have, rather than at the benefits these products have for users and at ways of meeting market needs. With personal computers, for instance, this approach would mean assessing competitors on the basis of the type of microchip circuit used and the elegance of the software. A much more useful comparison would focus on the ability of the various computers to provide what the personal computer user wants: ease of use, flexibility and the ability to grow with the user. This way, we are much less likely to overlook competition from businesses that products which appear to be different from our own, but which produce similar benefits for customers.
When the internal analysis is taken together with the external analysis, the result is an all-round picture of the current situation. This is usually known as a situation analysis or marketing audit. Developing this analysis requires a mass of information, which is the raw material for analysing market opportunities in order to identify- the most promising.
Possibly the most powerful, and certainly the most widely used, technique for structuring the analysis of the information is the SWOT analysis. This refers to Strengths of the organization, Weaknesses of the organization, Opportunities in the market place, and Threats to it( especially competitive threats) in the market place.
Strengths and weaknesses relate to the finding of the internal analysis, as seen from the viewpoint of the customer -- things it or its product does better than the competition, and things it does less successfully. Opportunities relate to findings from the analysis of the external environment. For instance, the trend among the educated middle classes in many countries to adopt "healthier" eating patterns opens up demand for a wide range of health feed products. The other side of this coin, however, is market threats: factors which inhibit demand for a business’s products. For example, for a manufacturer of highly processed convenience foods containing chemical additives, the trend towards more. "natural" eating is a marketing "threat".
It is important to remember that the attractiveness of a market depends largely on the strengths and weaknesses of the assessor. For this reason, an opportunity for one business may well constitute a threat to another. Similarly, the definition of any factor as a strength or a weakness depends largely on market conditions. The some organisational factor may constitute a strength in one market and a weakness in another.
According to the writer, real opportunities for businesses are those which ______.