Description
As a member of the business development team for this project, you use quantitative and qualitative market information to make important decisions and set the direction of the marketing plan. As you continue to work on your situation analysis report, your team will use the following tools to conduct an environmental scan, the foundation on which a solid marketing plan is built.
Tools for Environmental Scan
Company-Specific Analysis (internal)
SWOT analysis—A SWOT analysis is a planning and brainstorming tool that helps a company evaluate its projects and formulate its business plans. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You will use this tool to identify and analyze the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses as well as its external opportunities and threats. The results of this analysis may help the company improve its business or forecast how a new product or service will perform (Harmon, 2016).
Industry, Market, and Customer Analysis (external)
PESTEL analysis—A PESTEL analysis (sometimes called PEST analysis) enables the company to identify, analyze, and monitor the political, economic, social, technological, legal (including regulatory), and environmental factors that may affect its operations (Frue, 2017).
Porter’s five forces analysis—Porter’s five forces analysis is a framework that can help the company understand the competitive forces at play in its industry. These forces may influence how economic value is divided among the company’s competitors in the industry (Porter, 2008).
References
Frue, K. (2017). Why do PEST analysis for your business? Retrieved from http://pestleanalysis.com/
Harmon, A. (2016). SWOT analysis. Salem Press Encyclopedia [online]. Retrieved from Research Starters, Ipswich, MA.
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78–93.
Research your industry and its market trends in the United States and identify market opportunities, threats, and the company’s major global competition. Then conduct the SWOT, PESTEL, and Porter’s five forces analyses on your client’s company. These tools should allow you to analyze the company’s internal environment, customers, and macro-environment (external environment), and to answer the following questions in your situation analysis report:
Which elements have the biggest impact on the company’s success?
What factors affect the company’s customers (other businesses)?