Marketing management on Next Plc Assignment

MARKETING
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
The role of the marketing environment audit.............................................................................1
Advise on undertaking the audit for the macro environment......................................................2
Determination of key contemporary trends and changes in the external environment that can
create impact for the company ..................................................................................................4
Audit of competition(Porters five forces analysis).....................................................................4
Major opportunities and weaknesses faced by the company......................................................5
Section 2: The Marketing Plan........................................................................................................6
SMART objectives for Next plc.................................................................................................6
Recommendations for the segmentation, targeting and positioning...........................................7
Recommendations for marketing promotional strategy..............................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Marketing management is the process which helps an organisation to oversee and plan
the development of new products through advertisement, sales promotion etc. In other words, it
can be said that marketing management is the process used by the company in order to define
what products and services they are required to produce as per the customer’s interest (Barnes
and et.al, 2010). In addition to this, it helps company to develop various strategies that can be
used by them at the time of sales, business development and communication. Next plc. is the
British multinational company in United Kingdom headquartered in Enderby, Leicestershire.
This company was founded by Joseph Hepworth. It has around 700 stores operated in the world
and out of which 502 are operated in UK itself.
In the following report, marketing audit of Next plc. has been done in order to analyse
market environment of the company. In addition to this, SWOT, PESTLE and Porter's Five
Forces analysis have been done in order to overcome the problems that are faced by the
company. In this report market plan has been prepared for the launch of T-shirt introduced by
Next plc. In the following report, marketing plan has been prepared in order to recommend better
strategies to the company for the segmentation, targeting, positioning.
TASK 1
The role of the marketing environment audit
Marketing audit is an organized, encompassing, periodic and independent evaluation of
the company's marketing products. It is one of the significant tools that are used by the company
in order to analyse the competence of marketing strategy, its objectives, policies and strategies.
Role of marketing audit
Marketing audit plays an important role in designing market plan in order to conduct
marketing in different markets. Marketing audit helps an organisation to design and implement
marketing plan properly (Beverland and Lindgreen, 2010). In addition to this, marketing
environment audit assists company in analysing the impact of internal and external factors on all
the functions and activities that are undertaken by the organisation. Major role of marketing
environment audit is to analyse the internal and external environmental factors in order to
develop various marketing strategies and plans. This in turn will assist Next plc. to easily grow
towards the profitability. Through market audit Next plc. will also be able to ascertain the
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strategies and policies that are used by its competitors in order to attract more and more
customers. In addition to this, it will also help company to reduce its cost of production.
Therefore, marketing audit will ascertain company to analyse the latest trends, and
customer preferences as well as their wants, requirements and taste. This in turn will help
company to manufacture and launch the T-shirt easily in the market. In addition to this, it will
also aid company how segmentation can be done on the basis of demographic and geographical
criteria. Marketing audit assist the company in identifying the strengths and weakness of the
business. It also aids the company in evaluating the threats and opportunties that is present in the
external environment and can affects the functioning of the organisation.
However, at last, it can be said that major role of marketing environment audit is to
examine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the respect of company at the time of
manufacturing products (Foxall, 2014). Along with this, company will also be able to ascertain
its target market where they are required to launch their products.
Mixing theory:- Mixed theory says that the Next plc. should first probability distribute
over all the possible pure strategies and than afterwards they should utilise a mixed strategy at
the time of the launching new products.
Advise on undertaking the audit for the macro environment
Factors Affects
Political Political factors influence the development and growth of organisation as
well as industry. These factors affect the various rules of competition,
presence of different lobby groups and operational costs.
Economic These are one of the important factors that create an impact on the working
of organisation. Growth and development of the company majorly depends
upon the economic condition (Hollensen, 2015). This in turn will help
company to increase its profit margin by reducing the cost of production.
Imposition of VAT (value added tax) by the UK government has increased
the cost of production to a great extent.
Social Availability of various social factors such as attitudes, belief, preference of
the customers and fashion cycle affects the demand of product.
Technological Use of latest and improved technology will help company to reduce the cost
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