Marketing Environment & Competitve Advantage

MARKETING ENVIRONMENT & COMPETITVE ADVANTAGE

Discussion Questions

1. Compare and contrast a company’s microenvironment with a company’s macroenvironment.

A company’s microenvironment consists of those who are close to the company and whose actions can affect the company’s ability to serve its customers. Some examples include the company, suppliers, competitors, and customer markets. Customers are the most important actors in the company’s microenvironment because in most cases their opinions determine the success of the company. Another aspect of a company’s microenvironment are marketing intermediaries which serve the company by helping them promote, sell, and distribute its products to final buyers. Lastly, a company’s microenvironment consists of publics, which is any group that has an interest in or an impact on an origination’s ability to achieve its objectives.

The macroenvironment are the societal forces that affect the microenvironment, which include demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces. They are greater outside forces, and many of the forces are out of the control of the company; some can create opportunities and some may cause hardship for a business. An example is the demographic change of an increase in gays and lesbians, which American Airlines took a proactive stance towards and as a result increased their revenue.

2. Describe the five types of customer markets

The five types of customer markets are consumer markets, business markets, reseller markets, government markets, and international markets. Consumer markets are individuals and households that by goods and services for personal consumption; it’s the business to consumer market. The business markets buy goods and services for further processing, for instance Apple buying a microchip from another company, which is also known as a business to business market. Reseller markets buy goods and services to resell at a profit, they do not change the...