Key Areas For Marketing In A Competitive Environment
WHAT ARE THE KEY AREAS THAT A MARKETER
SHOULD STUDY AND
CONTRAST IN ANY COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT
Marketing is above all satisfying customer needs and as competition grows fiercer and fiercer, understanding customers today is crucial; but that is not enough. Under the marketing concept, companies try to gain competitive advantage by satisfying target consumer needs better than competitors do, and in achieving this, ensure their own survival.
So, the marketer is bound to face many challenges as new companies and new improved products make their entry on the market, the availability of new services brought about by latest technology and the price reduction entailed in the process. The battle for conquering new clients and to retain the old ones is on, and only those marketers who have adopted the best strategies will finally succeed.
The marketer has in hand many tools that he can use to help him in his task to have an edge over his company’s competitors. He needs to find out all he can about them. He must constantly compare his company’s products, their prices, channels of distribution and the promotion campaigns with those of close competing firms. In this way he will be able to sort out areas of potential competitive advantage and disadvantage. Competitor analysis involves first identifying and assessing competitors and then selecting which ones to attack or avoid.
One of the most efficient tools used by marketers today is Porter’s Five Forces Analysis which helps them to contrast a competitive environment. It has similarities with other tools for environment audit, such as PEST analysis, but tends to focus on the single, stand alone, business or Strategic Business Unit rather than a single product or range of products.
The Five Forces Analysis looks at five key areas that the marketer must address and are namely:
1. The competitive rivalry within the industry
2. The threat of substitute...
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