This paper circulates around the core theme of This task represents the first of two linked tasks examining your organisation’s current situation and subsequently leading to the creation of a marketing plan for Assessment Task together with its essential aspects. It has been reviewed and purchased by the majority of students thus, this paper is rated 4.8 out of 5 points by the students. In addition to this, the price of this paper commences from £ 99. To get this paper written from the scratch, order this assignment now. 100% confidential, 100% plagiarism-free.
Guide to Assessment Task 1: Situation Analysis
Situation % of overall assessment
Word count (approx.)
Learning
Due date outcomes addressed Analysis
30%
This task represents the first of two linked tasks examining your organisation’s current situation and subsequently leading to the creation of a marketing plan for Assessment Task
2. In this foundation for the marketing plan, the Situation Analysis sets up the SWOT/TOWS, which leads to clear identification of the major issues your organisation is facing and which will inform the design of the marketing plan that follows.
Your Task
NB: It’s a Situation Analysis – not a Situational Analysis
Your task is to prepare a Situation Analysis for the organisation you are currently working in or, if you are not currently working, an organisation with which you are familiar (e.g. a large global company). A Situation Analysis starts the planning process from ground zero and examines and evaluates the environment the organisation is currently operating in: the status quo, in other words.
It’s typically the first substantive section of a marketing plan in which the marketing manager usually details their assessment of the current situation.
This section sets the foundation for the marketing plan as it analyses current and potential customers, the competitive environment and the company’s relative strengths and weaknesses, against trends in the broader macroenvironment that may impact the product and its performance. This section also typically includes estimates of sales potential and forecasts, however, we don’t have the word space for that level of analysis so that won’t be included in your SA.
Focus only on those areas that are relevant to marketing and likely to have a significant impact upon elements of your marketing strategy (e.g. target markets, positioning strategy, marketing mix etc). Be analytical and detailed.
Your Situation Analysis will culminate in a SWOT/TOWS Analysis which will lead you to a marketing issue to be addressed through your marketing strategy (the next assessment task). In this case no problems or opportunities will be conveniently identified for you. Your reading may lead you to a strategic direction the company may be currently following or planning to follow, in which case you will be required to assess the merit of this direction using your theoretical knowledge of marketing. Or you may see more attractive opportunities in the macroenvironment for your product service.
One final point to remember: in some businesses, someone in management may actually suggest a preferred course of action or identify what they consider to be the major issues facing the brand. Keep in mind that they may not be right: it is up to you to use marketing
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theory and research to determine what the correct course of action is given the current circumstances.
The basis of your discussion should come from your prescribed text and your research into what’s occurring in your environment right now (or in the immediate future). You will need to relate issues you take from the organisation’s situation back to relevant marketing theory. Because this assignment is due in week 5 it is highly likely that many of the problems or opportunities you see facing your organisation will not have been covered yet in your reading. In this situation you will need to draw on your knowledge from your under-graduate degree, experience in your workplace, readings, discussions on the Moodle forum, or in consultation with me to help you interpret the nature of the problem/opportunity.
Your frame and structure
The structure of your paper and its sub-headings will include the following:
Title Page Executive Summary Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction
2.1 Situation Analysis
2.2 External Analysis
2.2.1 Industry analysis
2.2.2 Market analysis
2.2.3 Competitor analysis
2.2.4 Customer analysis
2.2.5 Macroenvironment
2.3 Internal Analysis
2.3.1 Operational analysis
2.3.2 Financial analysis
2.3.3 Product analysis
2.4 SWOT/TOWS
2.4.1 SWOT analysis
2.4.2 TOWS analysis Reference List
Appendix (if appropriate/required)
As you can see, I’m not asking for a Conclusion. In practice there isn’t a break between this part of the plan (Situation Analysis) and the strategy section, so I’m just advising you to conclude your plan at this point and to take it up again following the SWOT & TOWS in your next assessment task.
Possible tools for analysis:
Porter’s 5 Forces for structure, if you’re familiar with it
OR
Industry Life Cycle
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Here’s how to go about it
The first step with this task is to make yourself familiar with your organisation’s current Strategic Plan and Annual Reports for the last 2-3 years. Get a solid picture in your mind of how the company has been travelling.
At the same time, you can be starting your analysis of the current environment they’re operating in.
1.0 Introduction
The first point introduces the paper and the organisation: it’s a snapshot of the current operating environment that sets the scene so that we’re all on the same page. It’ll be short and sweet and cover information such as:
What business are you in? Where are you headquartered? How long have you been in business? Just briefly, in one or two sentences, what is your product mix?
Following your brief Introduction (where you give me the basics of your organisation) begin your plan with an examination of the external environment:
2.0 Situation Analysis
2.1 External Analysis
In this section you should analyse the current situation of the organisation in terms of the industry it operates in and the market it interacts with using appropriate tools of analysis.
2.1.1 Industry analysis
(e.g. definition size, growth, attractiveness)
Start this with a look at the industry and what’s happening in it right now. Identify whether it’s in growth or decline; the size of the industry; what’s changing in it – if anything – how attractive is it?
There are a couple of tools you can use for this analysis. You may be familiar with Porter’s Five Forces model from your undergraduate studies but, if not, that’s not a problem, just do a simple ILC.
Here’s an example from the newspaper industry you might find useful.
Power of Buyers
* Moderate buyer bargaining power as consumers can migrate to other papers or online news sources(3)
Competitor Rivalry
* High concentration of dominant players (1)
* Medium investment intensity (3)
* News Corp, and APN are main competitors across mastheads (1)
* Major competitors have joint ownership of AAP (3)
* Potential collaboration between News Corp and FXJ to merge printing operations (3)
* Online media sources puts pressures on margins and competes for classifieds
Threat of Substitutes
* Few true substitutes – only APN and News Corp are real competitors in terms of print newspapers (5)
* High substitutability in terms of alternative and media (1)
* Internal substitutes – SMH has online equivalents containing identical, or superior content (1)
Example:
Porter’s Five-Forces Model – Australian Newspaper Publishing Industry
Figure 1: Example of newspaper industry lifecycle
If you are comfortable with Porter’s Five Forces, use it by all means, but it’s not mandatory (or expected).
Threat of New Entrants
* High barriers to entry (5)
* High initial capital requirements (5)
* Requires special knowledge and scale advantages (5)
* Low industry assistance (3)
* Industry not attractive as it is in decline (5)
Figure 2: Example of Porter’s Five Forces
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Notice it is scored. Why, do you think?
Power of Suppliers
* Weak bargaining power of suppliers (5)
* Dominant players control own supply resources (5)
Example:
Newspaper Industry decline characteristics
Source: Allday, 2013; Reed, 2010
Newspaper
Industry decline
•Revenue/value set to decline at 5.6% per annum
•Alternative media (eg tablets) reduce circulation/readership in metro regions (Regional print still strong)
•Lose advertising revenue share to online classified sites, advertising sites, information sites eg Wikipedia
•Mergers and acquisitions reduce competitor numbers
Example:
Industry lifecycle –
Newspaper
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Porters Five Forces can be helpful to demonstrate the long–term attractiveness of the industry, but you may think it could chew up too much of your word count and that a simple little ILC would be sufficient, but I leave that decision to you.
2.1.2 Market analysis
Understanding your current market is fundamental to marketing planning and can be looked at in terms of market structure and customers.
2.1.2.1 Market structure
Market structure shows size, trend and how the market is divided by customer/consumer. In the following example (Figure 3) both size and trend are shown:
An example of segmenting the airline market is shown in Figure 4 below:
If you decide to analyse customers in this way you would then discuss each segment.
Figure 4: 2014-2015 Australian Airline market segments Source: IBISWorld
A figure like this makes the size of a market quite clear. Showing the size year-on-year is particularly useful in showing that the market is increasing in size (i.e. it’s in growth).
Figure 3: Example of Market Size
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The second part of a market analysis looks at customers (the people who actually buy – or who potentially buy) of products or services in this product category.
Remember, consumers are those who use the product as opposed to purchasing it. Sometimes they’re the same entity – sometimes not. A useful distinction to remember.
2.1.2.2 Customers
Think about the buyers of products/services in your product category.
Possible tools for analysis:
Audit
6 Ws
Hint: Make sure your paper isn’t a collection of figures and tables without any explanation. Always introduce and explain the information along with your analysis of its impact on your company’s situation.
Ask yourself: what does it mean?
A customer analysis along these lines could also be part of this section if you have the space. Here’s an example in Table 1 of the 6Ws for the Australian Airline market last year:
Table 1: Customer Analysis –Australian Airline market 2015
WHO – are the buyers? – is involved in the purchase decision? Personal and business travellers. Customer direct, travel agents, tour companies and corporate buyers. WHAT – do they buy? – trends are emerging? Quality, convenience, service, time saving. Customers are looking for a better deal, high level of service, low cost, safety, brand loyalty can be high, switching brands is relatively easy. WHERE – do they buy? Domestic – capital cities, regional centres and tourist destinations. International – tourist destinations, major hubs. WHEN – do they buy? Domestic – within the month before travel, when deals are available. International – forward planned, look for the best deals. WHY – do they buy? Cost, loyalty, services offered, reward programs. HOW – do they buy? – do current & prospective customers rate competitors on key attributes? Online – direct and facilitator sites, travel agents. Comparison of brands is high, cost is a key factor based on the particular services and inclusions of each provider.
7. Strategic Group Map Singapore Airlines Emirates Qantas Jetstar Regional Express Virgin (Tiger Airways) QantasLink Virgin (Virgin Australia)
Budget Quality of Service Luxury
Budget Airlines Luxury Airlines
Premium Economy
Example:
A simple strategic group map for the airline industry Price of Fare
2.1.3 Competitor analysis (e.g. some of the questions you may ask yourself may include: who are they, who are their customers, what are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their strategies?)
Analysis of the competitive landscape (direct or indirect competitors) can be handled in a variety of ways. For example you could show how the market is divided amongst the major industry players as below:
Figure 5: Newspaper market share
Another alternative – or additional way of considering the market is in terms of a strategic group map:
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
Figure 6: Strategic group map for airline industry
Possible tools for analysis:
Ries & Trout
Porters Generic Strategies
Kotler’s competitor classification;
Strategic map
Miles & Snow
In this example the newspaper market is divided into market share.
Market Share
34%
12%
7%
12%
42%
5%
News Australia Pty Limited
Fairfax Media Limited (Australia)
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a Limited; & Others
A perception map (Reis & Trout) is another way of locating the competitors in a product/service category.
The two most important indicators from the perspective of consumers are used to plot competitive positions. You’ll frequently see price and quality used in this way.
The following example (Figure 6) shows how consumers perceive competitors in the Australian accommodation (hotel) industry.
Another tool you could use here is Kotler’s Competitor Classifications as shown in Figure 7:
Figure 8: Analysis of market positions for Fairfax Media Limited (Australia) and its competitors using Competitor Classifications.
Source: Kotler et al., 2015, p. 111.
You could also depict this in a simple table format comparing your product/service with your main 2-3 competitors in terms of brand name, quality, image, price,
Example:
Kotler’s Competitor Classifications applied to the newspaper industry
News Australia Pty
Limited
Market Leader
Fairfax Media
Limited (Australia)
Challenger
Others
Nichers
APN News and Media
Limited; Seven West Medi
Followers
Figure 7: Perceptual map – Australian accommodation industry
Sources: Lepleux, 2007; Mahan, 2012
Example:
A simple perception applied to the Australian accommodation industry
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Possible tools for analysis:
PESTn
PESTEL
distribution (or anything else you deem to be important in your category, such as reputation, which is critical in the education industry).
2.1.5 Macroenvironment
In this section you will identify key trends in the external environment that will impact on your organisation and its products in either a positive way or a negative way. I’ve depicted this below by showing the opportunities for the newspaper industry
in green and the threats in red.
Operationally, five different types of environment may be identified: political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environmental/natural.
What is the bearing of each of these variables on your product’s future? What are the potential impacts?
Opportunities will need to be leveraged and threats mitigated or avoided by strategic manouvering through your marketing plan. Table 2 below is an example of how aspects of the macroenvironment have a bearing on Fairfax Media Limited.
Table 2: Fairfax Media Limited (Australia) Macroenvironment
Environment Key environmental trends identified for FJX Political/Legal NBN construction may lead to fragmentation of rival News Corporation’s Foxtel interests (Dawson, 2013). Economic Editorial reputation damage from ownership flux after share price fall such as happened in June 2012 with ‘Gina’ Rinehart (see Huang, 2012). Reduction in newspaper readership and profitability in favour of more nimble online and mobile news content options (Allday, 2013). Socio-Cultural Consumers demand more rapid news cycles and immediate publication of even incomplete news items (Saltzis, 2012). Consumers engaging in more technologically-driven social interactions (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). More Australians connected to the internet leads to greater demand for and advertising spend in online and mobile content (Allday, 2013). Consumers now more accepting of digital content (Shulman, 2013). Technological Online and mobile distribution much cheaper and more efficient than traditional printing (Allday, 2013). Smartphone and tablet uptake use greatly increased (Shulman, 2013) Environmental Pollution and carbon emissions targets are likely to be wound back by the Abbott government (Borell, 2013), causing uncertainty over taxation and paper supply.
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Possible marketing tools for analysis:
4P/7P framework,
GE/McKinsey matrix
BCG
How many issues would I expect to see under each of the macroenvironmental factors? There’s no hard and fast rule – it depends on what’s currently happening in your industry. If word space is an issue just remember that I expect to see at least three of the five most relevant variables examined here.
2.2 Internal Analysis
In this section, think about your company’s current capabilities and core competencies in terms of marketing strategies, financial performance, human
resource management. Include the company’s profit and sales/market share objectives. Product analysis also belongs in the internal analysis.
A simple way to organise this is to look at the business in terms of the organisation’s operations and its financials.
2.2.1 Operations
Under Operations you’d look at internal capabilities and competencies within the company to help identify the strengths and weaknesses existing.
Think about the specific skills and abilities in the workforce that contribute to your competitive advantage. Core competencies typically improve the perceived customer benefits of your product or service, are difficult for competitors to imitate and open up a range of markets to a company.
Figure 9 shows one way of organising this information for Virgin Australia (around the 4Ps), but you could do it differently.
Example:
4P Framework
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Table 3: FXJ internal capabilities
Product
•Quality service – Virgin Australia has invested heavily in developing a service oriented organisation, receiving awards for customer service (Virgin Australia, 2014).
•Innovation – Investment in technology and innovations, such as the recently introduced flight upgrade bidding system, further distinguishes the company from competitiors.
•Although Virgin Australia’s product policies offer the opportunity to differentiate from competitors, care must be taken to target the right product investments to limit impact on the company’s financial performance (Walker et al., 2015).
Price
•Low-cost defender – Acquisition of Tigerair Australia has enabled Virgin Australia to continue to offer low prices for the cost conscious market (Virgin Australia, 2014).
•Differentiated defender – Virgin Australia is now charging relatively higher prices to accommodate service and innovation improvements. These higher prices need to translate to additional value for the customer to ensure the competitive sustainablity of the company (Walker et al., 2015).
Place
•Deliver value – collaboration with businesses along the supply chain enables companies to maintain tighter control over channels (Walker et al., 2015). Virgin Australia colloborates with a variety of strategic partners e.g.Tourism Australia, Brisbane Airport Corporation and Airbus and the Cooperative Research Centre for Future Farm Industries. These alliances help to maintain its strong position in the mature airline industry (Walker et al., 2015).
Promotion
•Communicate value – To support differentiation, Virgin Australia maintains customer loyalty by continuing to build its Velocity Frequent Flyer program. However, additional investment is required to effectively communicate service quality and innovation distinctions for Virgin Australia. Now that integration with Tigerair and Skywest airlines is well established, additional advertising and sales promotion strategies should be adopted to attract cost-conscious consumers.
Figure 9: Virgin Australia Operational Environment
Here’s another option (Table 3) for depicting the information about functional areas in the company:
Functional Area
Resource
Capabilities Research and Development (R&D) Innovative R&D department Conducts research on an international scale
Human Resources
Skilled, motivated and engaged workforce
High quality journalism
Award – SMH:Newspaper of the year 2009, 2010, 2011 Operations
State-of-the-art printing facilities
Digital content
Distribution networks
Economies of scale
Diversity of media alternatives
Traditional and digital distribution
Higher quality product
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Major News ‘The Beast’ Advertising
Mastheads’ Packages
.com.au Metered Digital
Websites Subscriptions
& Apps (Paywalls)
Regional Metropolitan
& Community Print Publications
Print Publications et a
a
M
Example:
BCG Framework Stars Question Marks Cash Cows Dogs High Relative Market Share
Low Information for analysis is derived from:
profitability ratios
ROI
cost analysis
BE point
liquidity
debt ratios
Yet another method is to use a BCG like this portfolio analysis for Fairfax Media:
Figure 10: The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Market Growth-Relative Share Matrix Used to Conduct a Product Portfolio Audit
Sources: Fairfax Media, 2012a; Kotler et al., 2010, p. 74; Walker et al., 2012, p. 46.
Think of these in terms of what represents strengths and what constitutes weaknesses.
2.2.2 Financial Analysis
You need to check the company financials and give a brief summary from at least one Annual Report showing information such as liquidity, debt ratio, profitability, current return on equity and so on.
A table like this (Table 4) combines information from a couple of financial years, which should be followed by some analysis of the figures.
Financials are to be derived from company data as shown below in Table 4.
rket Growth R
Low
High
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Table 4: Virgin Australia Group Financial Summary
FY 2014 FY 2015
Earnings before interest and Tax ($162.7) million ($49.0) million Statutory Loss After Tax ($260.0) million ($93.8) million
Return on Invested Capital 1.4% 6.1% Positive Operating Cash Flow
($7.7) million ($218.1) million
Total cash position $783.8 million $1,028.5 million
Velocity Frequent Flyer revenue 18.5% growth
Source: Virgin Australia Holdings Limited, 2015.
Analyse: ask yourself: ‘what does it mean?’ Tables and figures must always be analysed and explained.
2.2.3 Product analysis
2.2.3.1 Current product
In this section you should cover the product attributes, current pricing, distribution and marketing communications. This is very brief, so don’t allow yourself to get bogged down here. See Figure 9 (p. 10) for a possible method for presentation of this information. There is no need for analysis here, just the introduction of the figure/table is sufficient to depict the current product strategy. This is a very short description of the product or service that the marketing plan to follow is to be designed for.
2.2.3.2 Current target
Include here a very brief description of that current target (which may change with your new marketing plan). Describe them in terms of the four variables covered in Chapter 6 of Armstrong et al.
This differs from the market analysis above in that this is (from the whole market described above) who you are currently targeting with your product and messages. Whereas in Section
2.1.2 you analysed the market in terms of buyers of the product category (as opposed to buyers of your particular product/service), now you are narrowing that down to the most attractive segments for your offering.
This is an important distinction to be able to make.
Now it’s time to start piecing all of this information together. One of the best ways to do this is in a SWOT analysis.
2.3 SWOT/TOWS
2.3.1 SWOT analysis
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For this you’ll compile all the identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats into a table and assign scores so you can clearly see what the level of importance each holds for your product. Here’s an example:
Table 5: SWOT Analysis for IBIS Hotel
Likelihood Impact Score Strengths
S1. Competitor development. rivalry is driving increased product
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S2. Customer loyalty is growing.
7
S3. Accor and Ibis have a true global presence.
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S4. Accor has significant expertise in hotel operation across all levels of the hotel industry.
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Weaknesses
W1. Differentiation sustainable. primarily on a cost basis is not
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W2. Most brands in the market are implementing a similar product strategy.
7
Opportunities
O1. There is an increasing demand for high quality, economy accommodation.
6
8
48
O2. Markets in less developed global regions are constantly growing.
6
7
42
O3. A solid financial position provides the means for increased development. I didn’t see your financial analysis…
7
6
42
Threats
T1. Increased competition from independent hotels and tourist parks.
6
8
48
T2. Price competition gives customers significant power to negotiate prices to unsustainable levels.
5
7
35
Scale: Impact 1 = No impact 10 = High Impact, Likelihood 1 = Very Unlikely 10 = Certain
Once that’s completed the really interesting part follows: Transform your SWOT into a TOWS like this:
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2.3.2 TOWS analysis
Table 6: TOWS Analysis for IBIS Hotel
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
SO
S1, S3/O2: Utilise competitor driven product development to increase growth in developing regions.
S3/O1: Build on the company’s global presence to satisfy the increasing demand for economy accommodation.
S4/O3: Leverage the combination of operational expertise and financial position to further development.
WO
S2, S3/W1: Further build on the company’s strengths to offer a further differentiated product.
S1/W2: Leverage competitor rivalry to combat similar strategies between brands.
Threats
ST
S2/T1: Focus on maintaining customer loyalty to combat increased competition.
S4/T2: Use the significant in-house expertise to ensure that price negotiation does not become unsustainable.
WT
W1/T2: Use focused marketing to emphasise differentiations other than cost.
W2/T1: Implement specific marketing to highlight the differences in strategy to competitors in all markets.
Your SWOT/TOWS acts as a platform for the design of a marketing plan for the product/service described in 2.2.3. It enables you to crystallise all the important information into one tool. Now you must give some thought to how you will take it forward. What modifications/revisions to your offering must be undertaken given this situation analysis?
How can you take it forward from this point?
Now that you have a very detailed understanding of the situation your product or service is in, how would you tweak your product/service to compete in this environment? Would you decide to target the tweaked offering/product/service to a different target? You have evaluated competitors and customers – you understand the financial situation of your company and how you stand in terms of core competencies and capabilities. What’s next?
2.3.4 What’s Next?
This signals the end of your first assessment task and is followed by the Reference List. As I said on p. 2, I’m not expecting a Conclusion here. Your second assessment task (due Week
10) will take up from this point and the marketing plan/strategy will be designed around the best way to market your product/service in the environment you analysed here.
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Here’s where the marks are:
SITUATION ANALYSIS
Introduction
External Environment
Market Analysis Industry Analysis Competitor Analysis Customer analysis Macroenvironment
Internal Environment
Operations Financials Product
SWOT TOWS
Referencing
Presentation TOTAL
Reference List
I’ve placed a document on Moodle to show you how to construct a Reference List (and cite a source in-text) using APA style referencing. You must use these instructions if you are not familiar or experienced with this style. If you’re stuck at all, just contact your lecturer. Do not underestimate how pedantic we are about this.
Submission of the paper
All papers must be submitted via Moodle. Under no circumstances will hard copies or emailed copies be accepted by the lecturer
If you need any more help, ask your lecturer.
How to access Google Scholar
From your browser go to Scholar.google.com.au
Along the top you’ll see 5 tabs. Click on Settings Click on Library links
Enter Federation University into the box
Tick the box Save
Don’t forget to have
pop-ups enabled
You may be asked to enter your Authcate user name and, when you’ve done so,
(along with your password) will be taken directly to Google Scholar
Just write your keyword into the search engine (e.g. Brands, Branding, Brand names etc.) and there you go…
The system will recognise you as a student and give you access to all the information you will ever want.
