Marketing Strategy For Business Environment

Segmentation and Marketing Mix Theories

Discuss about the Marketing Strategy for Business Environment.

The concept of strategic marketing can be described as the way in which a company or organization differentiate itself from the competition in order to have a bigger market share for its product or service. With the ever dynamic consumer behavior, companies have had to devices ways to keep them competitive and remain in business. To do this companies use various theories to develop their marketing strategies depending on the nature of business environment – both current and future, company capabilities among other factors. However, it is imperative to note that, there is no one such marketing theory that will fit all the products or services when coming up or developing a marketing strategy for any particular product or services. One of the marketing theories is segmentation. The theory postulates that different market sectors have different taste and behavior. Based on this theory, a marketing strategy should present the company product or services to the market segment which wants it and are able to purchase. This way the product is presented to the right target group as opposed to focusing on every edge of the market. (Coomber, 2007)

Marketing mix theory on the other hand postulates that, a marketing strategy should consider what it “calls 4 p”. These are Product, Price, promotion and placement. The product takes into account the features including the competition of the product, Price is a variant used to manage or control demand, drive market share and determine the margin of the profit. Promotion on the other hand seeks to determine which media avenues to engage in order to meet the right consumers of the product and make them aware of the discounts, product slogans, logos among other features of the product. The final P stands for placement of the product, which seeks answer where and how the potential customers of the product can access it. As an example, younger generation of the consumers have a tendency of surfing online for products and paying for them through established online channels such as credit or credit cards platforms. The product will then be delivered at their door step or designated location. In contrast, other consumers like to physically examine the product with the salesperson before making the purchase. (Doole, 2016)

In, General, different decision-makers will draw on different types of marketing theories to coming up with marketing strategies that best suit their products according to their understanding of all the aspects of the product and the market.

Corporate Appraisal

Corporate appraisal refers to measuring the ability of the company to respond to the dynamic external environment. It indicate how prepared is the company to tackle and cope with new surroundings that may affect its business. This preparedness measure takes into account a number of aspects or scope to effectively put a measure on the level of readiness of any one particular company. The tool takes into consideration the top management of the company under consideration in terms of analysis of the roles played currently as well in the previous companies. The appraisal also focuses on the marketing which entails the basic facts about the company products i.e. market share and forecast. It further touches on the production of the company in terms of ability of the workforce to work new processes and machines as well as flexibility of the machines. (Ferrell, 2016)

Financial aspects of the company also form part of the corporate appraisal in that the nature of its financial standing and the cost of capital are among factors that are considered in this aspect of the corporate appraisal. A company’s research and development further constitutes aspects that are considered when drawing a corporate appraisal. On this front, the reputation of the company in research and development and percentage of the company sales and profits attributable to research and development will be surveyed and determined. The corporate social responsibility is another aspect which can be considered when drawing up corporate appraisal. Under this part, the appraisal will look into the corporate expectation and the nature of shareholding. These considerations can be varied accordingly depending on the type of the company and the complexity of the market.

Generally strategic abilities of an organization on all the aspects of business will form the facets with which the organization can use to maneuver around the dynamism of the market. These facets should be developed by company on all its fronts such and not limited to, human resource, financial status, Engineering and production, marketing and raw materials among other fronts. These facets individually play important roles that would collectively allow the company to have a better response to the changing nature of business environment.

Zara clothing company is one of the largest fashion companies in the world based in Arteixo, Galicia, Spain. The company is owned by Inditex group, one of the world’s largest apparel retailers and is the group’s flagship brand. Zara Company emerged position 53 on the Forbes lists of the most valuable brands at $ 10.7 billion as of May 2016. (Lopez, & Fan, 2009) On corporate appraisal front, one of the strongest capabilities of Zara Company is its ability to develop a new brand and have it in its stores within two weeks while it takes other retailers six months to have new brand available to customers in their stores and other supply chain. Fashion being a fast paced industry, especially on ladies wears; Zara Company would have an upper hand in responding to the change in consumer taste in the market compared to other companies or competition. The company also has more than 2,100 stores worldwide, thus making its supply chain effective and strong enough to reach many of its consumers within short period of time. This also provide it with adequate cover should one of its market perform poorly then the other markets can boost the sales and the company would still be in sound financial status. Zara Company is also known for adoption of technological advancement in its production and sales processes. The company has a digital mirror that allows customers or clients to fit and try on cloths without actually wearing them or taking them off the shelf. (Lopez, & Fan, 2009)

Zara Company

Zara Company has major competitors in the field of fashion such as Uniqlo and Hennes & Mauritz or H&M. The two companies have extensive retail networks with over 1,000 stores each and employ different type of business models strategies and management of the their distribution of products. H&M is the oldest of the trio has a number of top selling brands such as Cheap Monday Monki and COS. It also has most physical cloth stores across the world with over 3,800 stores as at January 2016. Uniqlo on the other hand had over 1,450 stores across the world in the same period of time while Zara Company stood at over 1,900 stores. The United States of America fashion market has attracted the three companies with H&M being the most successful by the end of 2015 with over 400 stores across the US fashion market. Under the same period Uniqlo attained 42 stores while Zara Company stood at 55 stores in US. (Lopez, & Fan, 2009)

Uniqlo has majorly based its share of market in the country of origin, Japan, with over 700 stores. The company’s distribution strategy and development of new brands is quite different from that of Zara Company, with the Japanese fashion retailer preferring to base brand development and distribution ob demand rather than developing the product and availing it to the market through marketing and other selling techniques. Uniqlo strategy is responding to Japanese fashion trends and designing many of its brands following the minimalistic style, a style popular in Japan but not other parts of the world. This could be reason as to why most of the Uniqlo brands experienced low uptake in Western distribution channels such as in the US.     

In terms of branding, H&M appeal to the wider market by developing brands that have unique styles for each category of consumers. For example, Collection of Styles sales different brands of cloths at higher average prices compared to Monki. The brands higher in prices mostly target European markets and while Monki brands at averagely half price that of Collection of Styles tend to appeal more to the youthful consumers.

Zara Company does not focus more on advertisements and marketing. Instead the funds that it would have been channeled towards marketing are used to open more stores strengthening its supply chain and distribution channels. This could explain the rapid increase in the number of Zara stores across the world within short period of time. The strategy has worked for the company because its name is already out there and people would recognize its branded stores easily. The Company also seeks to cut the image of a high-end retailer but with affordable prices. With this factor many customers would prefer Zara brands which have high standing within the market but are affordable to a large number of consumers. (Wendell, 2011)  

Political	Economical	Social
Zara company being a multinational company must keep track of all the political decisions that affect their business in countries in which they operate. The more politically stable a country is the more it is favorable location to expand or establish business. The company has been able to target political stable countries for market expansion such as USA. (Peter, & Olson, 2010)	Zara management must be aware of all dynamism in economics such as inflation rates, exchange rates, and affordability of their products in the market and profit margins as well as other economic conditions. The company has been able to maximize on the European market where majority of the consumers have strong purchasing power.  (Peter, & Olson, 2010)	The Zara company management should be aware of the spending habits of the consumers and trends in the fashion industry which ultimately affects the sales of the company. The company should also be aware of the demographic changes in the market in which they operate so as to aid it in future decision making plans. The diversity of cultures around the world should also be a matter to be considered as this affect the consumer behavior in such jurisdictions. (Peter, & Olson, 2010)
Technological	Legal	Environmental
New technology always brings with it more efficient way of doing things which leads to better profitability. Zara company should ensure it always consider installing new technology in production and all other fronts for better efficiency and quality control. The company has however leveraged on zara.com to build online clients and make more sales. Also through social media such as Twitter and Instagram, the company has been able to reach millions of potential clients’ world wide. (Peter, & Olson, 2010)	It is imperative that Zara maintains correct legal standing in all the jurisdictions where it operates. This will ensure that the Zara retains a good name for its brand and perhaps improve on sales. (Peter, & Olson, 2010)	With the current agitation for clean environment Zara should ensure that it remains in the forefront in ensuring all its processes are environmentally friendly. The store policy should strict on waste products and its disposals. (Peter, & Olson, 2010)

Zara Company should consider focusing on marketing because it takes more time for word of mouth to spread to the unreached population. If the company is planning to expand to a certain locality then a fraction of the budged used to set up the new store can be used to market or promote the store within the local area. This makes the store get known a lot quicker that it would if would decide to rely on the word of mouth and the actual visits by the prospective clients.

References

Coomber, S. (2007). Branding. Chichester: Capstone.

Doole, I. (2016). International Marketing Strategy. Cengage Learning.

Ferrell, O. (2016). Marketing strategy. [S.l.]: Cengage Learning.

Fifield, P. (2016). Marketing strategy. [Place of publication not identified]: Routledge.

Hooley, G., Piercy, N., Nicoulaud, B., & Rudd, J. Marketing strategy & competitive positioning.

Lopez, C., & Fan, Y. (2009). Internationalisation of the Spanish fashion brand Zara. Journal Of   Fashion Marketing And Management: An International Journal, 13(2), 279-296.            https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13612020910957770

Peter, J., & Olson, J. (2010). Consumer behavior & marketing strategy. New York: McGraw-       Hill Irwin.

Wendell, M. (2011). Branding. BelleBooks.