Environmental analysis

The task: for a named company of your choice, operating in a different sector than your own, conduct a current analysis of the business’s environment insofar as it relates to the organisation’s strategic marketing activities. You should consider both the internal and external environment and, where appropriate, you should use appropriate analytical tools and models such as those given in marketing textbooks and the Lecturecasts (e.g. Porter’s Five Forces). Failure to use such tools, models etc. will be penalised. Make sure you analyse and interpret the material you include, explaining its relevance to strategic marketing activities; don’t just state facts. When using models, it is important that you explain the key messages you want the model to bring out.
SWOT: You should include a single-page appendix which gives a SWOT analysis of the organisation based on the material you have presented in the main document. The SWOT should be a simple 2 x 2 table with short bullet-point comments highlighting your key conclusions; the words used need not be included in the word count for the piece overall.
Be selective: given the overall word count restriction you should focus on selected aspects of the environmental analysis which are the most important insofar as they relate to strategic marketing. You must, however, ensure you cover a range of aspects from a macro- meso- and micro-environmental perspective, i.e. wider forces affecting all participants in a market (macro-), parties with whom the organisation interacts such as competitors and customers (meso-), and the internal resources of the organisation (micro-).
Information access: it is recognised that you will not have access to the same range of information as the named organisation will have, especially regarding its internal resources. However, a) you should make good use of publicly available contemporary sources to build as good a picture as you can b) you can make reasonable assumptions provided these are stated and based on referenced facts and c) where necessary, you should identify and state the key gaps in the information you have and why they would be important to fill.

– Words limit 2500
– Include Executive summary, introduction and conclusion
– Originality should not be more than 10-15%
Direct cite should be shown with quotation marks or inverted commas
– One of source: Hooley, G., Nicoulaud, B, Piercy, N. (2011) Marketing strategy and competitive positioning. 5th ed. London: Pearson Education Limited.