MSMK7001 Chap.3 The Company Microenvironment
The Company Microenvironment
The environment has two layers
The marketing environment is everything outside the marketing function, actors and forces alike, that bears on its ability to build relationships with target customers. The microenvironment is the close layer: the company itself, its suppliers, the intermediaries it sells through, its customer markets, its rivals and its publics.
The macroenvironment, in the next chapter, is the wider layer of societal forces. In the group plan, the close layer supplies most of the company and competitor analysis.
Inside the company and up the supply chain
Marketing plans must account for top management, finance, research and development, information technology, purchasing, operations, human resources and accounting.
Suppliers provide the resources to make the offer and should be treated as partners. The lecture lists what can go wrong, shortages, delays, strikes and rising costs, and the downstream result: higher prices, defects, late deliveries and unhappy customers.
Its cases include a smartphone launch reported at risk from a display shortage and a carmaker that publicly stood by its supplier during a recall.
Intermediaries and competitors
Intermediaries help promote, sell and distribute the offer and come in four kinds: resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing services agencies and financial intermediaries.
Competitors are those serving the same target with similar products, and advantage comes from positioning strongly against them.
The lecture's competitor cases range from a late entrant that led a category through a distinctive color strategy to a cereal maker that found a large country with no cereal rival and asked whether that meant success.
Publics and customer markets
A public is any group with an interest in or impact on the organization's ability to reach its objectives, and the course names seven types.
A detergent brand's disaster-relief laundry program shows a firm serving local and general publics directly. Customers come in five markets: consumer, business, reseller, government and international, each buying for a different purpose.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Microenvironment and macroenvironment
- 02
The company's internal environment
- 03
Suppliers and supplier relationship management
- 04
Four kinds of marketing intermediary
- 05
Competitors and positioning against them
- 06
Seven types of public
- 07
Five customer markets
Worked example · free
Assign each problem to the right actor
- 2Classify the bottle supplier problem and respond.
- 2Classify the bar chain problem and respond.
- 2Classify the residents' objection and respond.
Key terms
- Microenvironment
- The actors close to a company that affect its ability to serve customers: the company, suppliers, intermediaries, customer markets, competitors and publics.
- Marketing Intermediaries
- Outside firms that help get a company's goods to end buyers, including resellers, distribution firms, services agencies and financial intermediaries.
- Reseller
- A distribution channel firm, such as a wholesaler or retailer, that helps a company find customers or make sales to them.
- Public
- Any group with a stake in an organization, or the power to affect whether it reaches its goals.
- Product Placement
- Commercial communication that includes or refers to a product, service or trademark so that it features within a program.
The Company Microenvironment FAQ
What are the four kinds of marketing intermediary?
Resellers, the wholesalers and retailers who find customers or make sales; physical distribution firms, which stock and move goods; marketing services agencies such as advertising agencies, media firms and consultancies; and financial intermediaries such as banks, credit companies and insurers. Each solves a different part of getting the offer to buyers.
Why does a company treat its suppliers as partners?
Because supplier failures travel downstream to customers. The lecture traces shortages, delays, strikes and rising costs through to price rises, defects, late deliveries and lower satisfaction. Its carmaker example shows the partnership in practice: during a recall the firm took responsibility for a design fault and publicly supported the supplier concerned.
Can having no competitor be a bad sign?
Yes. The lecture's cereal case asks exactly this about a large market with no cereal rival. If a category is empty, customers may already meet the need another way, in that case through local breakfast traditions. The real competitor is then an existing habit, and the market has to be sized from people willing to change it.
Assessment move
For the company in your group project, write one line for each of the six microenvironment actors naming the single fact about it that most affects your new product. If you cannot find a fact for an actor, that is a research gap to close before the presentation, because the audience will ask about the competitor or the channel you left out.
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