Business

Target: Marketing and SWOT

Justice Page

Department of Business & Entrepreneurship, Prince George’s Community College

BMT 1010: Introduction into Business

Dr. Kathy Yorkshire, Professor

October 8th, 2021

Target: Marketing and SWOT

After reading this week's materials, I understand the importance of Marketing and SWOT

in a business. Marketing is defined in the text as a "set of activities related to creating,

communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for others." In business, the

function of marketing is to bring value to customers whom the business seeks to identify, satisfy,

and retain.

After reading this week's materials, a SWOT analysis is a starting point to assess "what

an organization does well and what it does less well." A SWOT analysis is four categories,

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strengths section is the best part.

Weaknesses are the worst part or need improvement. According to the text, the analysis's

opportunities section is to "assess the attractive external factors that represent the reason for a

business to exist and prosper." Lastly, the threats usually are external factors and risks to the

business staying in business or competitive. The information provided by the analysis influences

the planning during the POLC process.

Target Corporation implements these marketing goals by displaying products that meet

their values and promoting these products. The corporation determines this through its SWOT

outputs. According to Gaille's article, Target SWOT Analysis for 2021: 24 Key Strengths and

Weaknesses, Target's strengths are a "wide range of merchandise," unique brand, customer

loyalty, and growing e-commerce. However, the article goes on to label Target's weaknesses as

prices higher than competition, "data security issues," non-existent outside of the US, and facing

off with smaller and local competition.

These strengths and weaknesses make way for the opportunities for improvement and

assessing threats to Target. Some of the opportunities presented by Gaille for growing the

business are through non-credit card "customer loyalty programs." Another opportunity is to

open "smaller stores" and continue growing e-commerce through same-day delivery. However,

some threats to this growth and continuation of business are a "strong market competition,"

decrease in consumer consumption, as "customer preferences are continually changing."

References:

Module Ten - The Functions of Marketing. (2021, March 1). Retrieved October 8, 2021, from

https://biz.libretexts.org/@go/page/68112

Gaille, Brandon, Target SWOT Analysis for 2021: 24 Key Strengths and Weaknesses (2021,

June 21) Retrieved October 8, 2021, from

https://brandongaille.com/target-swot-analysis/