Entrepreneurial Marketing Report: Third Way Group Case Study Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of entrepreneurial marketing strategies, using the Third Way Group, a London-based office design and furniture company, as a case study. The report explores the key features of the small business marketing environment, including internal and external factors such as suppliers, customers, and competitors. It examines the operational issues faced by new ventures and SMEs in the furniture industry, such as resource scarcity, competition, and access to marketing platforms and technology. The report also compares and contrasts standard marketing theory with the practices observed in the case study, highlighting the innovative and proactive approaches of entrepreneurial marketing. Furthermore, it discusses the development of problem-solving, effective communication, and self-management skills within the context of entrepreneurial marketing. The report uses SWOT analysis to compare Third Way Group with a larger competitor, Furniture Village, highlighting their respective strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Finally, the report focuses on the marketing mix (product, place, promotion, and price) of both companies and how they tailor their strategies to address the challenges of the furniture sector, providing valuable insights into how SMEs can effectively compete in the market.

ENTREPRENEUIRAL
MARKETING

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 industries 5
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 entrepreneurial marketing 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
business marketing environment which gives them competitive advantage. 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 internal environment 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:
Suppliers include parties that provide resources to third party group. If they increase
their prices it will affect the finance of the company.
Customers are the target group of the organisation which are selected and are availed
with the products and services of Third way group.
Competitors are the players in the same market who targets same customers as of third
way group.
Public is 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 environment is 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.

Economic environment constitutes 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 environment under which the business operates includes climatic conditions,
accessibility of raw materials etc which can affect the company and its processes.
Technological environment constitutes 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 environment which 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 environment is made up of culture, values, lifestyle etc, and third way group do
Corporate social responsibility for the society and its benefits that created a good image of the
company.
The thirdway group is a SME that deals in selling customized as well as own handmade
design furnitures for office and home purposes whereas on other hand the furniture village has
over 50 stores and is 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 comparision between both the companies :
Strength – The strength of thirdway group is its loyal employees as the employees are
less, conflicts are less. The other strength is that they can focus on their customers and can retain
them by intoducing new innovations in furnitures and their designs. On the other hand furniture
village that is a large company and has its strength in finances and efficient cash flow which
helps the company in having effective operations.
Weakness – The weakness of the thirdway group is that it lacks technological
advancements which 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 both large 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 responsibility and 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 being a large
comapny furniture village head office is at London but has expanded its operations in 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 the strategy use 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.

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.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
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Planning, Risk.
Kilenthong, P., Hultman, C.M. and Hills, G.E., 2016. Entrepreneurial marketing behaviours:
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Entrepreneurship. 18(1). pp.127-145.
Lipschultz, J.H., 2019. Social Media Measurement and Management: Entrepreneurial Digital
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Miles, M., and et.al., 2015. Exploring entrepreneurial marketing. Journal of Strategic
Marketing. 23(2). pp.94-111.
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Sigué, S.P. and Biboum, A.D., 2019. Entrepreneurial Marketing and Social Networking in Small
and Medium Service Enterprises: A Case Study into Business Dealings in
Cameroon. Journal of African Business, pp.1-17.
Online
Marketing theory, 2019. [Online]. Available through : <
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-marketing-theory-21058.html>