Introduction to Marketing

INTRODUCTION TO
MARKETING

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a management process through which company distributes their goods and
services to target customers and market. It is related to various activities, set of institutions and
process for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that serve value to
customer, clients, stake holders, etc. It helps to satisfy needs and requirements of customers. It is
essential for marketing department to manage their marketing strategies effectively so that they
can reach to their customers as well as fulfill their demands on time. By using appropriate
distribution channel, company can provide their goods and service to their customers on time.
Marketers can also apply different marketing concept and marketing mix to make their strategies
more productive. Lidl is leading discounted supermarket chain based in German. Company was
founded in 1930 with its headquarters in Neckarsulm, Germany. It has been operating in more
than 10,000 stores especially across Europe and USA. This company is biggest competitor of
Aldi. This assignment will mainly focus on expanding Lidl business in UK retail market to
compete their rival teams. They provide low cost and affordable goods to their customers. This is
the reason Lidl has a strong reputation in the market with such a large number of loyal and
satisfied customers. Appropriate research on retail industries is done to provide critical
information about rivals to Lidl. Models like PESTEL, SWOT, Ansoff Matrix, Boston
Consulting Group Matrix, etc are used under this project to analyze opportunities, threat,
weakness, strengths, political, economical, social, and legal and other information factors that
can influence Lidl business and growth. Research on UK population has been given which can
provide maximum benefit to Lidl Company and encourages their sales and profits. Different
marketing model and marketing mix are used to provide relevant approaches to marketing
strategies are covered under this assignment.
TASK 1
Market research on grocery market of UK by different tools

SWOT ANALYSIS: It is a strategic tool which is used to identify internal factors such as
strengths and weakness of company as well as external factors like opportunities and threats.
These factors help company to find out the core strengths of company to deal with other
competitors in market and stay ahead of their rivals whereas what are the weak areas which
company should pay attention to improve those areas, so that they can come up in effective
manner. What are the different opportunities which a firm can get and some threats while
competing in market? This helps in better comparison of internal and external factors with
business objectives and goals and gives precise idea about favorable and unfavorable situations.
Before formulating any strategy in relation to business expansion, growth, new product launch,
etc, managers use SWOT Analysis to find out the chances of profit and loss to company.
Retail market of United Kingdom is a very large platform where numerous competitors
are present and this main strategy is to attract as many customers towards their products and
service as possible. Retail companies are using SWOT analysis to identify better opportunities
and threats of their company form other competitors. It is really a tough task to manage
everything and achieve success. With the help of this analytical tool, various strengths,
weaknesses, threats and opportunities of retail market of UK can be identified who can influence
sales and marketing of Lidl. Following is the SWOT analysis:
STRENGTH (Internal factor of organization)
It is an internal factor which is very crucial for Lidl to identify. As it is one of the leading
supermarkets, they have to continuously upgrade their strengths areas to retain their position. To
expand their business in markets of United Kingdom, they have to make whole lot of planning to
make the expansion successful. As Lidl has a strong reputation in market, it can be easy to start
their new business in UK. They have to focus on target customers and market areas where they
can get maximum profits and sales. This company has strong online presence and is available
online. This is a greater strength of Lidl to enhance their market online as maximum number of
people buy products online and digital marketing has a great scope in present as well as in future.

WEAKNESS (Internal factor of organization)
If Lidl wants to achieve maximum growth in retail market, then they have to focus on
weak areas also because these factors can prevent company to achieve desired success. Managers
and superiors should pay attention to their weakness and try to improve it as soon as possible. If
they are proficient and talented in their functioning then they can their followers in effective
manner. Weakness of Lidl Company is that they are relatively small as compared to other brands
like Aldi, TESCO, etc. They have not expanded their business globally and are limited to United
Kingdom and USA. They should try to open up their stores globally so that they can give tough
competition to other rivals companies. As they have large number of store in UK but they lack
sufficient employee workforce to attend customers and answer their problems at the stores. This
decreases customer satisfaction and tend to prefer other rival companies for better assistance.
Above were some weaknesses, which the company needs to focus to achieve desired success.
OPPORTUNITIES (External factor of organization)
It is necessary for companies to overcome all their weaknesses to become a successful
leader. As retail sector is ever growing market, so company has great opportunities to expand
their business. They can shift their business to countries which have growing economies.
Managers can formulate effective market strategies to grow their business and acquire large
market share in retail market.
As they have strong hold on online marketing, they make it more effective and customer
friendly by doing some modification and making unique products available in their website.
With the help of Search Engine Optimization, they can register their websites with famous
search engines. This will customers to reach the company within a shit time period. Organization
can focus on great opportunities lying in front of them and start their actions in that direction of
getting success.
THREAT (External factor of organization)
There are challenges which company has to face on daily basis. Lidl has a growing
supermarket chain and many competitors are already present in the market which have well