Marketing Audit
Scholarly marketing audit has been exemplified to be an elementary aspect in the marketing planning process. This process is not only composed in the beginning of the whole production process, but also through series of sequence in the plan implementation for quality results. Usually it encompasses both internal and external authority in the market planning as well plan review (Abell, 1998).
According to Kotler (1997) marketing audit is the strategic ideology in today’s evolving market, which evaluates marketing environments activities and objectives. Further Kotler states that the best approach of reviewing, improving and evaluating the functioning of the market is through marketing audit execution. This involves a systematic, comprehensive, independent evaluation of the organization objectives, activities, strategies and environment to unveil weak areas and opportunities; this also offers a solution and recommendation for repairing the organization marketing performance. All marketing scenarios are covered and does not centralize on trouble spots only and thus to many this approach is versatile for all occasion.
Stanton (1995) exemplifies in her journal “Analyzing and Improving Marketing Performance: Marketing Audit in Theory and Practice” that marketing audit is the critical, unbiased and systematic analysis and judgment of the organization marketing functions, policies and objectives and the methods, procedures and the task force employed to achieve this objectives.
This approach has been critically evaluated wrongly and biased by many experts however it has been articulated that the following two factors are the reason many of the pursuant go haywire when implementing this approach. It has been asserted that it is wrong to define market audit as evaluation of the alternative effects before the main decision has been attained. Two it is usually confused that this is the practice off curative and anticipatory marketing remedy (Mitchell & Wood, 1997. However if this process is utilized properly the following are the benefit which can be reaped from this initiative; this approach helps pinpoint the organization weaknesses, offers ways of mitigation, centralizes on successful operation, predicts future positions, improves market performance and covers all marketing scenarios.
This paper shall centralize on AnyBiz Inc’s as the organization of choice and the implementation of market audit. This shall cover its marketing audit, the position of the market, SWOT analysis and PESTEL analysis, Stakeholder analysis (stakeholder matrix), the organization vision and the recommendation on the preferred choice of approach in future proceeding.
AnyBiz Inc Marketing Audit
AnyBiz Inc is the leading developers and designers of advanced data web based systems. They are the master mind behind creation and intervention of the market advanced system which is essential for specialist data capture and also for operational management process. Anybiz inc develops systems which are developed are web based and they are compatible with hardware’s that are supplied by major integrators in the global market. These products are sold to small, medium and large sized organization with the same scope locally and internationally and their choices range from their diverse specialist applications (McDonald, 1984). Anybiz’s systems are distinguished in the market because of their unique and sophisticated scalability, interface and versatile modification and they are expansively patented.
The systems of AnyBiz Inc are usually sold through direct contact from the authorized vendors or from the organization catalogue or online cite for the organization, through major distributors like OEMS locally and abroad. These systems are rated to be the most modest intervention to majority of the web based data intervention by many experts and this organization quality design and development is rated to be the best in the world. This organization employs thousands locally and abroad and has a record in recycling and has been rated to be among the most green organization in the system development industry as majority of it products are developed from recyclable materials (Aubrey, 1982).
AnyBiz Inc Corporate Values: this organization operates within the context of accordance with extreme standards with customer relations, suppliers, community and the environment. The atmosphere fostered by this organization graces diligence, growth and innovation to the staff and has a record of awarding their employees accordingly.
Anybiz Inc Vision statement: To expand aggressively and offer high returns to the environment and stakeholders
AnyBiz Inc Objectives: This organization main objective is to develop systems which are compatible with the users need with efficiency, versatile ability and ecological friendly with prices suiting every pocket within the social class of every person.
Positioning
The current market environment which AnyBiz Inc is treading on is very hostile due to contrabands from china. Majority of the system which is counterfeited from this region has been providing headache for the management of AnyBiz Inc. This has limited the probability of the current growth although the products from this organization are highly patented; lack of regulation in china has brought about numerous counterfeits in the market. Competing with this cheap innovation although faulty has been an uphill task for AnyBiz Inc (Schuchman, 1989). Other system developers have also been hit by this Chinese madness and they are also counting the losses experienced through these interventions.
However, excellence of the designs and expertise in the production process by AnyBiz task force has ensured that they are still topping the market with creative innovative systems. They have managed this through operating on sophisticated and complex designs which are hard to imitate and this has left the counterfeit market baffled and unable to make contrabands for imitation purposes. These ratings have made this organization to rank among the most advanced in technology with the like of the technological giants like Apple Corporation (Baker, 2008.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is the reviewing of the four concept of stability of the organization which is divided into two factors internal and external. The Internal factors of AnyBiz Inc will centralize on the strength and weakness within this organization.
Strengths
Among major strength that this organization has been credited with is the ability to develop and design innovation which are hard to imitate and they have highly patented their products to promote this. The system products which are produced by AnyBiz Inc are compatible with mat implementation and they are versatile with any intervention. This organization has employed wizards of technology whom have developed and designed system which competitor sin this industry are unable to imitate (Baker, 2008). The organization is managed through diverse strategy which fosters transformational leadership which has encouraged the taskforce to embrace unique skills and apply them in the invention and this has brought about diverse new intervention now and then.
Weakness
Some of the major weaknesses recorded for this organization are gaps of capability within the context of customer loyalty because this is not an old institution. Lack of aggressive competitive strategy and strength from this organization, this occurs because of the cheap contrabands being imported from China, and lack of restriction from this region to prevent products counterfeiting and imitation. Another factor has been lack of marketing expertise which has reduced the sales of this innovation to decline because people are not familiar with them personally (Kotler, 1997).
The external factor are the opportunity and threats which usually are the presented because of the external environment associated with the AnyBiz Inc.
Opportunities
Due to the advancement of technology traditional non-interactive media are slowly weaning out and paving way for newer technologies like the ones that AnyBiz system are applicable to (Stanton, 1995). This development of new market as people are embracing technology has ensured that this organization is bound to find more market through the internet. New international markets have developed because of the versatile systems designed by AnyBiz Inc which have also resolved to vacate of ineffective competitor.
Threats
Recent development of contrabands imported from China which are counterfeit and imitation of the original system which are very cheap and prove to be a headache to most developers. This has brought about price wars as they are cheap and some are designed to look like the ones that are made by AnyBiz thus complicating sales of their products. Tax has also been an issue in international market where some region the taxes are high reducing the profit of the product (Jaworski & Ajay, 1993).
PESTEL Analysis
A complete PESTEL analysis usually details the analytical tools that usually reflect on external factors of the organization and they assist the management to evaluate the danger and opportunity which they present. This usually details the political, economical, social cultural, technological environmental and legal factors (Rapidbi, 2007).
Political factors: The political heat between America and China has elevated and the pressure has been bad for majority of organizations are forced with the pressure which has dented the economy of America. This pressure has led to instability of the economy which has brought pressure on the international market and thus many system developers are failing in this region. Tax policies and tariff and trade controls are also other issues which dents this organization as exemplified by Brownlie (1996).
Economical factor: Among the major factor here is the political factors and globalization are among the major setback which have hit AnyBiz Inc. Labor cost also has been another issue for this organization due to political pressures brought about by economic environment changes.
Sociological factors: Cultural aspects have derailed major implementation by AnyBiz Inc this is fostered by health risk, population consciousness and age distribution (Leppard & McDonald, 1991). Another factor is earning and education capacity among the dwellers of the region that this organization has set up businesses. Ethical and media issues also are a priority.
Technological factors: some of the major factors include technology maturity, technological development competition, legislation and new interventions. Local communication, internet and information technology are also another factor.
Environmental factors: one of the major factors here is the ecological factor which PEFA has put strict regulation on most production industries, other influential factors includes customer, shareholder and market values and the organizational cultures.
Legal Factors: The current local market legislation on system is a bit naïve to new products and intervention. The regulation from PEFA concerning emission of greenhouse gases are another factor which makes designing and developing of products in the UnitedState become a very expensive chore this implied on the industrial specific regulation. Regulation in foreign market and high tax tariff is another shake up that is bound to let this organization down in the near future.
Stakeholder Analysis (Stakeholder Matrix)
Stakeholder analysis is usually considered to be the action of stakeholder’s attitude analysis toward a new project of when auditing the market (Mitchell & Wood, 1997). This is usually applied frequently through project phrase to review stakeholder’s attitude concerning particular potential changes. AnyBiz would deploy stakeholder’s analysis to ascertain the stakeholder’s attitude toward new intervention which would be implemented to the organization.
The stakeholders shall be plotted against two variables which outlines; (I) stake level from the project outcome against stakeholder’s resources. (II) Stakeholder’s importance in favor of stakeholders influence. This implies to as the four categories of stakeholders as noted by McDonald (1984).
1.) High importance and influence both on the project, this supposes that there is dire need for AnyBiz Inc to collaborate and secure good working network with this function for the project to be successful, examples are high executives and trade union members
2.) Stakeholders with high importance and low influence to the success of the project, this requires that this group special initiatives be defended by the organization, an example are marginalized group of youth and seniors whom assumedly are beneficiaries to the new intervention and have little say on the development of this projects.
3.) High influence Stakeholder’s with power to affect the outcome of the project. However, usually this interest are not fostered to the project overall goals. Usually they include fiscal administrators whom can dictate funding disbursement discretion. Thus they pose a threat to the well being of the project and keen scrutiny is advised.
4.) Low influence and importance for the well being of the project objective thus they require less monitoring and reviews (Abell, 1998).
AnyBiz want to be operational in about roughly 100Ft Unit in George Town. And the project is expected to generate from the annual sale $98, 971 profit and intend to employ fifteen employees. Here executives in the project fall in the scale of stakeholders 1 of high influence and importance. The older employees and the new employees who will be in charge of the new employees fall second with high importance and low influence. The funders fall on the third category and the community falls on the fourth scale.
Recommendation
There should be put in place a marketing orientation from the traditional strategy which fosters market audit review every now and then. This would encourage easy analysis of the organization so that they maybe able to shape the competitiveness of the market. This would also help to mitigate the pressure which is generated from the political factors which have resulted to excessive contraband flow in the market. This organization should also evaluate the customer price satisfaction to beat the competitive market and engage their competitors for a run of their money. The organization should also bank on evaluation of the emerging trend in the market due to changes brought about by technology. Future implementation should be aligned with E-commerce which is the new intervention for majority of the web based system developers.
Conclusion
Proper induction of the marketing audit assures AnyBiz Inc of a chance to mitigate all possible threats and develop means to sabotage all weakness and change them to strength. Through this intervention when properly and regularly utilized this organization is bound to develop with a promising rate and be able even to combat counterfeit through development of un immitigable web based systems.
