Situation Analysis
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Project4_MarketingPlan_SituationAnalysis.docxProject 4: Developing and Implementing a Marketing Plan
Introduction
In this project, your client has tasked your team with creating a marketing plan with the goal of increasing sales to other businesses in the United States. This project has been broken down into several smaller tasks in the steps below: Step 2: Review Information on Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing Step 3: Understand the Components of a Marketing Plan and Research Guidelines Step 4: Prepare a Situation Analysis Report Step 5: Conduct an Environmental Scan Step 13: Submit Your Work
Competencies
Your work will be evaluated using the competencies listed below.
· 1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
· 1.3: Provide sufficient, correctly cited support that substantiates the writer's ideas.
· 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.
· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or problem under critical consideration.
· 2.2: Locate and access sufficient information to investigate the issue or problem.
· 3.1: Identify numerical or mathematical information that is relevant in a problem or situation.
· 4.3: Contribute to team projects, assignments, or organizational goals as an engaged member of a team.
· 4.4: Demonstrate diversity and inclusiveness in a team setting.
· 6.1: Identify the general (external) environment in which an organization operates and discuss the implications for enterprise success.
· 6.2: Evaluate strategic implications for domestic and international markets of an organization's industry.
· 6.3: Analyze an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses for strategic value.
Step 2: Review Information on Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing
As You Get Started
Jillian Best catches you in the hallway:
"Listen, before I send you the case file on our new client, I want to make sure you have a thorough understanding of the business-to-business relationships that will be at the core of the marketing plan you will be contributing to. Look for an email from me this afternoon."
INBOX: 1 New Message
Subject: Case Primer for Marketing Plan From: Jillian Best, CEO, MCS To: You As you have learned through your work with MCS clients, marketing is one of the most important functional areas in business. As you get oriented with the realities of business-to-business (B2B) marketing, I’d like you to do some more reading on two main elements: (1) business buying behavior, and (2) strategic alliances.
Business buying behavior relates to how business customers and their suppliers explore different avenues to manage relationships and enhance efficiency and effectiveness. Fostering the right relationship with businesses is crucial for any holistic marketing plan. B2B relationships are affected by supply, complexity of supply, availability of alternatives, and supply-market dynamism.
In addition, our new client may consider forming strategic alliances to expand its US operations. The twenty-first century has seen an increased use of long-term global strategic alliances among both producers and distribution companies. Organizations form these alliances in an effort to secure commercial advantage and eliminate waste from their distribution channels. They can be crucial to success.
Please review the information linked above before going any further. This is a big client and a tremendous opportunity for MCS. Let me know if any questions arise as you get oriented with your team.
Best,
Jillian
Now that you have read the introduction to B2B marketing, continue to the next step, where you will learn about the components of a marketing plan.
Step 3: Understand the Components of a Marketing Plan and Research Guidelines
The team's marketing knowledge and data acquisition skills are crucial to the success of this project. Your team will collect and analyze the information necessary to develop a marketing plan for expanding the company's operations within the United States.
Use this marketing plan template (see below) to help you create your situation analysis for your marketing plan.
Take Note
To carry out this assignment, your marketing team needs to understand the client's customers, how to acquire market knowledge (through primary and secondary research), and how to turn that knowledge into offerings that are needed and wanted by a group of customers. You must also be able to invent market offerings that not only create value for the customer, but also create profitability for the client in a socially responsible and ethical way.
As you will recall from the previous projects, there are two types of market research: primary and secondary research. Both types of research are necessary when creating a marketing plan. As you conduct research for your marketing plan, use the school Library's Research Guides, specifically (1) Business and Management and (2) Marketing. Consult these two research guides and find articles that will help you complete your assignments. It is easier if you conduct a separate search for each section of your marketing plan. Also, use databases, such as Hoover's and ABI/INFORM to research the client company and its industry.
Now that you understand the components of a marketing plan, continue to the next step, where your team will learn more details about your client and its industry.
Marketing Plan Template
2. Situation analysis
2.1 Mission
2.2 Product or service description
2.3 Value proposition
2.4 Internal environment scan (SWOT analysis)
2.5 External environment scan (PESTEL & Porter's five forces analyses)
2.6 Critical issues
Step 4: Prepare a Situation Analysis Report
Required Readings
Chapters 1, 3, & 14
Lancaster, G., & Massingham, L. (2018). Essentials of marketing management (2nd ed.). Routledge
INBOX: 1 New Message
Subject: Company Case File & Questions to Consider From: Jillian Best, CEO, MCS To: Team Hi again. I wanted to provide you with the company case file and some pertinent questions for you to consider while you work on your B2B marketing plan.
As part of the preparation necessary to complete your business-to-business marketing plan, you and your team will need to do in-depth research on your client's company, including its operations, global reach, and range of offerings.
I need you to produce a situation analysis report explaining your team's findings on the company. Be sure to include a value proposition , essentially the promise that is made to the customer, explaining the reason a customer purchases a product or uses a service (i.e., the value that a company delivers to its customers).
Start by reading the attached case file and be sure to consider the following questions while you do additional research:
· Where is the company headquartered?
· What are the company's major products and/or services?
· What is the company's annual revenue in dollars, and what is its annual production in units?
· Does the company own its own facilities, or does it subcontract manufacturing to others?
· Who are the company's major suppliers of raw materials or parts, and where are they located?
· What is the distribution of the company's workforce by country?
· How does the company differentiate its offering in its highly competitive markets?
· Does the company have exclusive marketing or distribution agreements or partnerships?
· Who are the company's major global and US customers?
· What benefits does the company offer to its customers?
· Who are the company's major global and US competitors?
When developing your situation analysis, you should also understand the importance of vision and mission statements and then research the company's own vision and mission statements.
Write a four-page document detailing the main findings of your research about your client, including its mission and vision statement. Submit your document to your team’s study group.
That's it for now, Jillian
Attachments:
Canadian Solar Inc.
COMPANY PROFILE
Headquarters Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Established 2001
Annual revenue: US$3.39 billion in 2017
Number of employees: 12,129
Website: http://www.canadiansolar.com
Industry Solar
Product line: Manufacturer of solar modules that are used in residential, commercial, and industrial solar power generation systems
Competitors: First Solar, JinkoSolar, SunPower
Sources
Barron’s. (n.d.). Canadian Solar Inc. Retrieved from https://www.barrons.com/quote/stock/us/xnas/csiq/company-people
Nasdaq. (n.d.). Canadian Solar Inc. Common Shares (CSIQ) Quote & Summary Data. Retrieved from https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/csiq
The Wall Street Journal. (n.d.). Quotes and Companies: CanadianSolar. Retrieved from https://quotes.wsj.com/CSIQ
In the next step, you will complete your situation analysis by conducting an environmental scan that takes a comprehensive look at the many factors that you need to consider, exploit, or defend against in your marketing plan. This situation analysis will be incorporated into your B2B marketing plan later in this project, along with deliverables from the upcoming steps.
Step 5: Conduct an Environmental Scan
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)?
Deliverable: Your final situation analysis should include a four-page overview of your research findings and a ten-page review of your environmental scan. The completed situation analysis report should be 14 pages, excluding cover page, the reference list, and appendices. Any tables, graphs, and figures should be included as appendices. Your report should have one-inch margins and be double spaced in 12-point Times New Roman font. The report should be organized using headings and subheadings to improve its readability.
Support your work with scholarly sources and reliable non scholarly sources such as Reuters, Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, Barrons.com, Morningstar.com, Money, Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review, as well as the school Library databases such as Hoover's and ABI/INFORM. All sources need to be cited using APA formatting, both within the text and in the reference list.
Project Deliverable
Final situation analysis teamname_finalsituation_analysis.docx
RESOURCES
SWOT Analysis
Porter's five forces analysis examines the situation faced by the competitors in an industry. Strategic groups analysis narrows the focus by centering on subsets of these competitors whose strategies are similar. SWOT analysis takes an even narrower focus by centering on an individual firm. Specifically, SWOT analysis is a tool that considers a firm’s strengths and weaknesses along with the opportunities and threats that exist in the firm’s environment, as represented in the table below.
Executives using SWOT analysis compare these internal and external factors to generate ideas about how their firm might become more successful. In general, it is wise to focus on ideas that allow a firm to leverage its strengths, steer clear of or resolve its weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and protect itself against threats. For example, untapped overseas markets have presented potentially lucrative opportunities to Subway and other restaurant chains such as McDonald’s and KFC. Meanwhile, Subway’s strengths include a well-established brand name and a simple business format that can easily be adapted to other cultures. In considering the opportunities offered by overseas markets and Subway’s strengths, it is not surprising that entering and expanding in different countries has been a key element of Subway’s strategy in recent years. Indeed, Subway currently has operations in nearly 100 nations.
SWOT Analysis
|
SWOT point |
Organizational examples |
Individual examples |
|
Strengths |
Having high-levels of cash flow gives firms discretion to purchase new equipment if they wish to. |
Strong technical and language skills, as well as previous work experience, can help individuals rise above the competition. |
|
Weaknesses |
Dubious leadership and CEO scandals have plagued some corporations in recent years. |
Poor communication skills keep many job seekers from being hired into sales and supervisory positions. |
|
Opportunities |
The high cost of gasoline creates opportunities for substitute products based on alternative energy sources. |
The US economy is increasingly services based, suggesting that individuals can enjoy more opportunities in service firms. |
|
Threats |
Concerns about worldwide pollution are a threat to petroleum-based products. |
A tight job market poses challenges to new graduates. |
SWOT analysis is helpful to executives and is used within most organizations. Important cautions need to be offered about SWOT analysis, however. First, in laying out each of the four elements of SWOT, internal and external factors should not be confused with each other. It is important not to list strengths as opportunities, for example, if executives are to succeed at matching internal and external concerns during the idea generation process.
Second, opportunities should not be confused with strategic moves designed to capitalize on these opportunities. In the case of Subway, it would be a mistake to list “entering new countries” as an opportunity. Instead, untapped markets are the opportunity presented to Subway, and entering those markets is a way for Subway to exploit the opportunity. Finally, and perhaps most important, the results of a SWOT analysis should not be overemphasized. SWOT analysis is a relatively simple tool for understanding a firm’s situation. As a result, SWOT is best viewed as a brainstorming technique for generating creative ideas, not as a rigorous method for selecting strategies. Thus the ideas produced by SWOT analysis offer a starting point for executives’ efforts to craft strategies for their organization, not an ending point.
In addition to organizations, individuals can benefit from applying SWOT analysis to their personal situation. A college student who is approaching graduation, for example, could lay out her main strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats presented by the environment. Suppose, for instance, that this person enjoys and is good at helping others (a strength) but also has a rather short attention span (a weakness). Meanwhile, opportunities to work at a rehabilitation center or to pursue an advanced degree are available. Our hypothetical student might be wise to pursue a job at the rehabilitation center (where her strength at helping others would be a powerful asset) rather than entering graduate school (where a lot of reading is required and her short attention span could undermine her studies).
Key Takeaway
Executives using SWOT analysis compare internal strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats to generate ideas about how their firm might become more successful. Ideas that allow a firm to leverage its strengths, steer clear of or resolve its weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and protect itself against threats are particularly helpful.
Resources
Licenses and Attributions
4.6 SWOT Analysis from Mastering Strategic Management by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing is an adaptation of a work whose original author and publisher request anonymity and is available under
PESTEL Analysis
A PESTEL analysis is sometimes called a PEST or PESTLE analysis. It is a tool that scans a company's macro-environment, and enables it to identify, analyze, and monitor the political, economic, social, technology, legal, and environmental factors that may impact its operations (Frue, 2017). PESTEL analyses are used in industry and business to determine organizational situation, direction, and potential; as well as strategic planning (Lin, 2013).
Political Factors
What is the government's involvement in the business environment, and the degree of that involvement? Some examples of political factors are labor laws, taxation policies, tariff and nontariff barriers, and environmental regulations. Political factors may also include the services and goods that a government provides. Changes in the priorities of government spending may have a profound impact on policy, strategy, management, and process issues (Halik, 2012; Lin, 2013; Thomas, 2007).
Economic Factors
Economic factors include the general economic climate, fiscal and monetary policies, economic trends, economic growth, employment levels, government funding, and consumer confidence, and so forth (Halik, 2012; Lin, 2013; Thomas, 2007).
Social Factors
Social factors relate to demographics such as age and population growth, behavior, lifestyle changes, diversity, education, and career attitudes, among others. Trends in social factors may influence the demand for a company's products and services, and may also affect how that company operates and adapts (Halik, 2012; Lin, 2013; Thomas, 2007).
Technological Factors
Technological factors include advances in technology, communications, and information technology, as well as innovation and research and development (R&D). These factors may impact how knowledge is shared and distributed, and the speed at which this knowledge is disseminated. In addition, advances in technology and communication may influence how people communicate and socialize (Chao, Peng, & Nunes, 2007; Halik, 2012; Lin, 2013; Thomas, 2007).
Environmenal Factors
Environmental factors include all those that impact, or are influenced by, the surrounding environment. Environmental factors play a crucial role in certain industries, such as agriculture, tourism, and recreation. These factors include geographical location, weather, climate, global climate change, and environmental offsets (PESTLE Analysis, 2017).
Legal Factors
Legal factors have both external and internal aspects. Certain laws and regulations may impact the business environment in a country, while corporate policies may influence how a company operates. Legal analysis takes into account both of these aspects, and then lays out the strategies accordingly. Examples of laws and regulations include labor laws, safety standards, and consumer laws (PESTLE Analysis, 2017).
References
Chao, G., Peng, A., & Nunes, M.B. (2007). Using PEST analysis as a tool for the refining and focusing contexts for information systems research.
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
Porter's five forces analysis is a valuable tool for competitive and industry analysis. The model stipulates that an industry's profit potential is contingent on the intensity of competitive rivalry within it. This rivalry, in turn, depends on the five forces outlined in the sections below (de Kluyver & Pearce II, 2012).
The Threat of New Entrants
When market entry is relatively easy, an industry will show strong competition as entrants fight for market share, thereby increasing the industry's capacity and upsetting the balance between supply and demand. The potential of new entrants depends on existing barriers to market entry and the response from entrenched competitors.
Barriers to entry may include the following (de Kluyver & Pearce II, 2012, p. 55):
· capital requirements
· product differentiation
· cost disadvantages
· access to distribution channels
· economies of scale
· government regulations
Powerful Buyers
Buyers and suppliers influence competition by exerting pressure over quality, prices, or quantity offered.
Buyers are powerful under the following conditions:
· they buy in bulk
· they are few
· they can integrate backwards
· the product is undifferentiated, leading to low switching costs
Powerful Suppliers
Suppliers are powerful under the following conditions:
· they are dominant and few
· the product is differentiated, leading to high switching costs
· few substitutes are available
· suppliers can integrate forward
· the industry represents a small portion of the suppliers' revenue
Substitute Products and Services
Substitutes continually threaten most industries because they cap prices and profitability. Changes in technology can help substitutes take a significant market share from existing companies. Companies should be wary of substitute offerings that are produced by wealthy companies, as well as those that have a better price performance than the industry average.
Rivalry Among Competitors
The degree of rivalry depends on the industry's growth rate, as well as the number of competitors, their relative size, and their competitive skills.
Intense rivalry is expected under the following conditions:
· there are many competitors, relatively equal in power and size
· there is slow industry growth, and competition mainly focuses on acquiring existing customers rather than new ones
· there are high fixed costs or highly perishable products
· there are big leaps in capacity
· exit barriers are high, making it too costly to discontinue operations
A Sixth Force?
Intel's founder, Andrew Grove, suggested adding a sixth force to Porter's model: the influence of complementary products. Complementors are businesses from which customers buy complementary products (e.g., computers require software, and software require computers). As long as the industry's and complementors' interests are aligned, the status quo is maintained. However, new trends and technologies can disrupt the existing order; new technological standards can render previously compatible products or services incompatible (de Kluyver & Pearce II, 2012).
The impact of these five forces continues to shift as business models and industry structures change. For example, the internet has reduced barriers to entry and increased competitive rivalry in many industries (de Kluyver & Pearce II, 2012). Anderson (2006) argued that innovation in e-commerce and search engine technology enhances the efficiency of online retail by encouraging the entry of new innovative products.
References
Anderson, C. (2006). The long tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more. New York, NY: Hyperion.
de Kluyver, C. A., & Pearce II, J. A. (2012). Strategy: A view from the top. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
