Global Marketing Management

Situational Analysis of International or Global Marketing Environment

Rationale for assignment: This part of the coursework will develop and assess each student individually with regard to his or her research and analytical skills pertaining to the international marketing environment. Students will also be expected to show clear evidence of being able to critically evaluate models of analysis at this level.

Each student will be required to develop a situation analysis for use in an international marketing plan for a company of their choice. Students will be required to conduct a critique of any models that they choose to use to construct their situation analysis. The situation analysis is to be done on an individual basis and then shared with fellow group members for incorporation into the development of Part II of this coursework.

The activity

Situation Analysis for a company of your choice in One Overseas Market.

You work as a marketing consultant for your company. Your firm has asked you to conduct a comprehensive situation analysis (with accompanying recommendations) for a country.

Your situational analysis should contain the following key components:

• An analysis of the marketing environment for the country you have been selected to research. This type of research should focus broadly around:

- PEST analysis/Country Analysis (Potential and selected Target Market)
- PORTER'S 5 FORCES Industry and Competitor Analysis

• A SWOT analysis of the company for the country/market concerned.

In summary, normal research process here is to:

• collect data from the mainstream business sources plus any industry-specific sources

• do an analysis of the data and identify the environmental forces (macro and micro) at work in the industry with the changes and trends in these

• identify cause and effect between these macro and micro forces and the impact on the firm at present and into the future

• identify strengths and weaknesses within a firm in relation to its key success factors.

• select, analyse, prioritise and summarize the key issues that face the company in the specific market you are examining.

Extra Guidance notes

1. This is to be presented in a report format with the normal report writing rules applying.

2. The 2,000 words exclude references and bibliography. Please include the references clearly (there should be at least 10 valid references including material from the net which you are encouraged to use). Please type double spacing.

3. You will be assessed on the extent of your research; how the research has been logically presented and the points clearly made and explained and finally, how well the brief was addressed taking into consideration the analytical quality of the written presentation, its overall structure and the development of a suitable conclusion.

In this assignment you show the steps in the decision-making process whereby finally a positioning for a given retailer in a stated country target market is shown (in Seminar 4, we'll do a perceptual map). Please do not re-invent the assignment- there is a BRIEF and you need to keep to it!

Your bibliography will refer to GMM-related texts as well as to databases, and each item in the bibliography will be cross-referenced in teh text and vice-versa. You are expected to include at least 5 texts (IM/GMM) in the references, and to avoid references to non- GMM/IM -related texts (and elementary marketing texts). PLEASE RE-READ THE LAST SENTENCE You can of course include article references (journals rather than magazines-same comments as above) but are advised to keep internet references to no more than 25% of the total. A guideline is about 12-15 bibliographic references.

Using database market material is not an option, it is a necessity and you can refer to Week 2 seminar references if in doubt. No one is to 'make up' figures or guess at them. Use rich data and extract information from it.

1. International profile of retailer (c 150 words with Appendix support)

2. Reasons for internationalizing (further) ( c 100 words)

3. Market Screening -reference to screening tools (put all but one in Appendices and ‘part-apply' the text model/matrix)

4. Market selection: you can ‘jump' to a decision on a potential market (chosen as a result of your Datamonitor-Market Line Advantage/Euromonitor/Mintel etc. search: see Seminar exercise) 200 words

5. Selected Market- market drivers, competitive and customer analyses ( 400 words plus appendices )

6. Perceptual Map and rationale (c100 words)

7. Brief recommendation (Go/No go-if, unless) 50 words

• Screening is a process of filtering out potential foreign target markets.
• Screening criteria include aspects of risk, reward, cost, time, competitive factors.