Select a (domestic)  public limited company of your choice which has some degree of market power. In an essay of 2400 words or fewer, evaluate the pricing strategies it employs for its core product/business in order to increase its market share and profitability within its industry (at the national level).

Task B must be written as an essay. You will need to build up a case study based on a company of your choice. You must first demonstrate that the company has some power to set its own price (that is, it has some degree of market power) – e.g. what is the structure of the industry it operates in? What is its market share for the product? How concentrated is the industry?

You must then use economic analysis to evaluate the pricing strategies your firm has adopted for its main product(s). Make clear comparisons between the predictions of the economic theories covered in the module and the empirical evidence for your firm. Are the strategies adopted by the firm optimal? If so, why? If not, why not? How might they be improved?

Further guidance on the assignment will be made available on the VLE. 

The Company of choice for study is AkzoNoble. Each student is required to do a separate topic so I’m stock with a leading paint company, from my research AkzoNoble seems to be the lead in the market, this was based on a 2012 report. The following is a layout of which the assignment is supposed to be.  Kindly ensure assignment answer meets the below requirements. The areas in the yellow highlight are to be noted carefully. Also this is an Econ assignment diagrams where necessary are required and are to be drawn from scratch/the start. 

Introduction – 

The background of the Company AkzoNoble. Must be concise, structure of the organisation, the size of the organisation, you may talk about the CEO, managers etc. 

Note – Introduction should be about 2-3 paragraphs long and the last 3 lines will introduce what the essay will address. 

Structure of the Body – 

First part of body structure – 

This will talk about the Market Structure, describing the industry, talk about the market which the organisation operates, size of the industry itself and how many players in the industry and its market share, where does the organisation falls in this market share structure. This must be illustrated in a diagram example a pie chart representing the top 5/6 competitors within the industry.  

Concentration of the market

Base on the market share and market concentration the market structure will be determined. 

Second part of the Body Structure 

Theories/Pricing Strategy 

• Briefly mention the different pricing strategy/ies 

• Determine what are the pricing strategy determined by your firm 

• Explain how/why you think this is the pricing strategy 

• Answer the question – Are the strategy/ies optimal? Is it the best choice? If Yes why, if not why? 

Conclusion – 

Recommendation of how they can improve, remind examiners of what you did and briefly summaries your findings.  

Be sure to use the words prediction of the economics theories and the words “empiral evidence”, “firm optimal” etc (Essay question from the top of the page) end with a good flow one into the next.