Contents INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3 MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................................3 Features of small business marketing environment................................................................................3 Key operational issues faced by new ventures and small businesses in specifies sectors and industries5 Compare and contrast ‘standard’ marketing theory and practice seen in the business research findings .................................................................................................................................................................6 Develop autonomous learning skills regarding problem solving, effective communication and self management...........................................................................................................................................6 CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................7 REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................8
INTRODUCTION The Third way group are a London based office design, architecture, furniture and development Company. This company partner with clients from all industries to create best environment for their employees. The company was started by Ben Gilliam. The company is based on trust, team and commitment with fun. In addition to their core values the company has three values which includes behave like an adult, celebrate success and believe in achieving organisational goals. The company is provided with a budget to have a project completion activity involving key representatives from the client team as well. The company believes in doing CSR gor the society and even being an SME it contributes alot for the benefit of the society. It would be wrong to say it a single marketing strategy and more about marketing spirit that differentiates itself from traditional marketing practices. It utilizes a toolkit of new strategies of marketing efforts. They work within limited budgets and has limited resources. The most common features of entrepreneurialmarketing include innovation, risk taking, and being proactive. For bettr understanding the report will take thi8rd way group of UK that is SME and deasl in providing furniture t and designs to the cusotmers. This marketing campaign tries to highlight the company’s greatest strengths while giving values to the customers. Focusing on innovative products or customer service makes this firm stands out from competitors. They do marketing using cheap and accessible tools including viral videos, tweets, Facebook, and marketing with the help of email. The report will include distinguishing features of small businessmarketingenvironmentwhichgivesthemcompetitiveadvantage.Further,key marketing operational issues faced by new ventures and small businesses in specifies sectors and industries in global context. The report will compare and contrast standard marketing theory and practice in the small business. At last the report will show to develop abilities of problem solving, effective communication and self management. MAIN BODY Features of small business marketing environment The Third way group are a London based office design, architecture, furniture and development Company. This company partner with clients from all industries to create best environment for their employees. The company was started by Ben Gilliam. The company is based on trust, team and commitment with fun. In addition to their core values the company has three values which includes behave like an adult, celebrate success and believe in achieving organisational goals. (Gothe, 2019). Marketing environment is the combination of external and internal factors and forces which affect the company’s ability to establish a relationship and to serve its customers. It can consist of external and internal environment. The internal environment is company specific which includes owners, marketers, and workers, materials etc. the external environment of the
company is divided into two components which are micro and macro factors. The micro factors include are producing, distributing and promoting the product. The macro factors on the other hand include the factors that can affect the society as whole (Genoveva, 2017). Features of marketing environment: Internal environment –The internalenvironment of the business includes all the factors that are present inside the organisation which can affect the marketing operations of the company. These components are men, money, machinery, materials, and markets (Efrat, 2017). The internal environment is very important to third way company as it includes employees of the company, marketing department, sales department, human resource department etc.The owners of Third way give away the awards to its employees during weekly meeting of the team to reward people when they behave in accordance with the values of the company. They also give bad behaviour awards which are delivered in jest to employees who were not up to expectations. The organisation runs strongly on ethics and values (Miles, and et.al., 2015). Apart from that the money of the company is invested and utilised on right manner which allow the company in achieving success. The human resource and marketing department of the company are also effective as they deal in taking care of the employees and listening to their queries and suggestion and along with that marketing department focuses on advertising, using social media networks tom attract customers. External environment- These are the factor under which the company has no or very little country. It is divided into two parts: Micro environment– These are the factors that are directly related to the business. It includes: Suppliersinclude parties that provide resources to third party group. If they increase their prices it will affect the finance of the company. Customersare the target group of the organisation which are selected and are availed with the products and services of Third way group. Competitorsare the players in the same market who targets same customers as of third way group. Publicis made up of group that has a potential interest or affects the ability to serve its customers. Macro environment– The macro environment does not affect the industry as a whole but do not affect directly on the company. These are: Demographic environmentis made up of people on the basis of sex, age, background, occupation etc. Thee third way group takes care of its customers on the basis of their taste and preference, age etc.
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Economic environmentconstitutes the factors which influence purchasing power and spending patterns. The factors included in this are GDP,inflation etc (Nijssen, 2017). The third way group also faces inflation which affects its business operations. Being an SME, it still contributes to the GDP of the country. Physical environmentunder which the business operates includes climatic conditions, accessibility of raw materials etc which can affect the company and its processes. Technological environmentconstitutes innovation, R & D, innovation etc. which affects the third way group the most. As it deals with furniture therefore being innovative is the most important for them tom attract the customers. Political environmentwhich includes law and regulations which are prevailing in the country. The third way group follows all the policies and regulations as prescribed by the law (Sigué, 2019). Social environmentis made up of culture, values, lifestyle etc, and third way group do Corporate social responsibilityfor the society and its benefits that created a good image of the company. The thirdway group is a SME that deals in sellingcustomizedas well as ownhandmade designfurnitures forofficeand home purposes whereas on otherhand the furniture village has over 50 storesandis also an retail industry comapny. It has its own website through which it sals all the furniture online and is privately owned coampny. It has effective cash flows and revenues. Both the comapnies are residing in retail industry of furniture but one is SME and other is large comapny but both can use same mareketing tools differently to solve their issues. The two marketing tools which can be used by the comapny: Swot analysis -This strategy can be used by both SMEs and large company in order to find the strength, weakness, threat and opportunity. The comparisionbetween both the companies : Strength– The strength of thirdway group is its loyal employees as theemployees are less, conflicts are less. The other strength is that they can focus on theircustomersand can retain them by intoducing new innovations in furnitures and their designs. On the other hand furniture village that isa largecompany and has its strength in finances and efficient cash flow which helpsthecompanyin having effective operations. Weakness– The weakness of the thirdway group is that it lacks technological advancementswhich blocks it in getting more customers whereas in furniture village the weakness is employee turnover which is very high as many employees work in the firm leads to chaos and conflicts which affects the productivity and working operations.
Threat– The threat of bothlarge and SME are its competitors only. The other threat of thirdway group is limited resources whreas for furniture village it is reduction in its market share which can decrease the goodwill of the comapny. Opportunity– The opportunity for SME is to give employment opportunities to candiadtes and to contribute in the GDP of the country whereas in large companies the opportunity lies in doing corporate social responsibilityand investing in technology. Mariketing mix of both the companies Product –The product offered by thirdway group offers desining furniture and building it as per the requiremnents of the customer. The products will vary according to the preference and need of the cusomer. On the other hand, the products offer by furniture village company are different kinds of furnitures along with its related accessories which can attract the customers toward the product. The difference is that furniture village do not offer customized products. Place – The thirdway group deals with its cusotmers from UK situated in London based office design, architecture, furniture and development Company. On the other hand beinga large comapny furniture village head office is at London but has expanded itsoperationsin many other countries like USA, Africa etc and have offices their as well and take local orders from their itself. Promotion –The thirdway group uses advertisement and newspaper as their promotional technoques. Sometimes they even use email to invite customers to buy their products. On the other hand the promotional techniques used by furniture village is social media platfroms, their own websites throug which they take orders, they also have sales person to sell their products and uses advertisements on television. Price –The price srtategy of Thirdway group is economic in which they provide products to their customers in affordabl price with good quality. On the other hand thestrategyuse by furniture village is price skimming strategy which sells their products at high price and provide products of high premium quality. Key operational issues faced by new ventures and small businesses in specific sectors and industries Key operational issues faced by new ventures and small businesses in furniture industry are: Scarcity of resources– Due to new entry in the furniture sector, the resources are very limited which blocks the growth process for the company. Due to high inflation, customers postpone their plan for buying furniture which leads to loss for the company (Hisrich, 2017). Also the corruption in government leads to no support from the government. The lack of labour and raw materials makes it difficult for the company to make furniture and sale it to the ultimate customers.
Competitors– The other issue is competition in the market of the furniture industry. There are many companies offering the furniture with new updates and features and are already established with good reputation. To make a name and to give a tough competition to other firms is a big problem (Atanassova, 2015). The customers are mostly retained by those firms therefore to break the customers and attracting new customers can be a issue for new SMEs. Inadequate access and marketing platform– The new entrants have been subjected to weak marketing linkages. Due to insufficient support of government, lack of marketing facilities. For marketing of products or services, SMEs are limited to scarcity of budget which in turn has limited their growth. Lack of access to new technology– Although technology got really advanced in these years due to internet but SMEs use low technology which result in low productivity. It has rendered them uncompetitive in the ever widening market. The third way group also faced the same problem when it started its business. Technology improves productivity and brings efficiency and reduce cost of production but SME fails to cope up with new technology due to lack of finance. Lack of finance– The most challenging barrier that new SME entrants face are the lack of finance. They are unable to raise the funds from the banks and government and especially in sector like furniture which includes a lot of innovations. Insufficient basic facilities and connectivity slower down the growth of SMEs. Even if the companies get finance, it is available on high interest rates which get difficult for the company to pay back. Bad economic environment– The economic environment of the country also plays an important role in creating issues for new SMEs. The bad economic environment includes inequality, corruption, inflation etc. which hamper the growth of SME and blocks it in growing and be stable in the market. Compare and contrast ‘standard’ marketing theory and practice seen in the business research findings The standard marketing theory it the collection of data and analysing it so that the companies can sell their products effectively. This information helps the company make new products or change existing ones and set prices and choose distribution channels and then try to create a brand image in the market place so the products of the company can be sold. The SMEs when launch their product need to be aware of the standards marketing theory which includes positioning its product or services in the marketplace in away that the consumers believe that they need that product or service, this way the company can create its brand. The company dealing in furniture need to find the difference between own and other competitors product and hen need to try the ways in which they can improve it. The unique feature in the product will give the competitive advantage to the company (Lipschultz, 2019). After that the company needs to choose price of its services or product whatever its providing to its customers.
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The perceived value theory of marketing states that in case the price of your product is higher than that of the competitor then it attracts the customers as they believe in superiority of product. The social networking theory of marketing centres around the effects on technology on marketing the products to the consumers. Social networking is the new form of communication and includes selling products through Facebook, Email, etc to attract more customers. The other research finding is that when the company sends a message about its product it is more likely to catch the attention of the customers therefore with this theory the company can increase its growth as well in the market. Develop autonomous learning skills regarding problem solving, effective communication and self management Problem solving skills- To solve problems at workplace and to develop this skills, one needs to get enough sleep and work out with brain by playing puzzles and games which keeps the mind calm and rational. The individual can write personal experiences to explore new ideas so that the thought can be sported and in case any problem arises it gets easier to view it. The use of mind maps can help in increasing problem solving skills as it helps in focusing the mind and stimulates the brain and increase creative thinking and generate more ideas to solve the problem (Kilenthong, 2016). Effective communication –For effective communication it is important to be confident. After being confident, the next step is to conduct open meetings which are a great way that to make others understands what the meeting is about. Be serious and believe in every word that is communicating via your mouth as unless individuals do not believe in what they are communicating, no one else would believe it. It is important to use simple words and language that is understood by all which creates good impression (Hernández-Perlines, 2016). For effective communication, the individuals can use visuals to make the team easily understand the concept behind the meeting. Self management –It is like being own boss. It means taking responsibility of actions and doing things as well as possible. It helps in keeping the balance between work and personal life. The three things that can help in managing self are initiatives means using brains and having a drive to achieve something. The other thing is organisation means being organised and managing time and things at the same time without any issue. The last is accountability in which individual do not blame other and take responsibility on self for any mis happening and correct it. CONCLUSION The report concluded features of marketing environment which included external and internal environment which was further divided into macro and micro factors. It showed various
issues that SME faces while entering into market which can be lack of finances, lack of exposure etc. It showed marketing theory that can be used by the company in order to increase its sales and at last summed up with different skills that can be improved in order to have effective working environment.
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