Understanding Customers and Competitors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Understanding Customers and Competitors - Essay Example Understanding Customers and Competitors At the same time every company has its customers with limited budgets. They are free to choose to purchase from a company or other then that company who offer the same goods and services and at the same time competitor of the first company. Customers also free purchase totally different substitute goods and services by means of their limited funds. Companies those offer similar goods and services are the direct competitors of each other. Thus it is most important to understanding the Customers and Competitors A company's marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside marketing management's ability to develop and maintain successful transactions with its target customers. The marketing environment offers both opportunities and threats. Successful companies know the vital importance of constantly watching and adapting to the changing environment. Treacy, M. & Wiersema, F. (1993) mentioned that marketers take the major responsibility for identifying significant changes in the environment. More than any other group in the company, marketers must be the trend trackers and opportunity seekers. Although every manager in an organisation needs to observe the outside environment marketing it, marketers have two special aptitudes. They have disciplined methods-marketing intelligence and marketing research- for collecting information about the marketing environment. They also spend time in the customer and competitor environment. By conducting systematic environmental scanning, marketers are able to revise and adapt marketing strategies to meet new challenges and opportunities in the marketplace. Evans, J. R., & Berman, B. (1990) has stated the marketing environment is made up of a microenvironment and a microenvironments. The microenvironment consists of the forces close to the company that affect its ability to serve its customers- the company, suppliers, marketing channel firms, customer markets, competitors, and publics. The macroenvironvent consists of the larger societal forces that affect the microenvironment- demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces. Kotler, P., Armstrong, G. (2006) argued that marketing environment is made up of five microenvironmental and six macroenvironmental components. The microenvironment consists of other actors close to the company that combine to form the company's value delivery system or which affect its ability to serve its customers. The first microenmental component is the company's internal environment- its several departments and management levels- as it influences marketing decision making. The second component