Micro, Macro and KSF

Hi There,

Following on from last week, we are going to update you about our research of Nike Footwear. We have been looking further into the Macro analysis; each of us developing on our specific sections, which are:

Political & Economic--> Chelsea

Social--> Ross

Technology & Environment--> Kirstie

After looking at these PESTLE macro factors (external factors that will affect your brand), we went onto look at the micro factors, which are internal factors that affect your brand, these include:

1.    Customers- study of consumer markets, business markets, reseller markets, government markets and international markets.

2.    Competitors- position against, gain strategic advantage and adapt to needs

3.    Public- any group that has the interest or impact on an organization, ability to achieve objectives (media, local groups ect)

4.    Suppliers- resources to produce goods

5.    Company- Research and Development, finance and data

6.    Intermediaries- Agency, distribution

From these we have been able to share information found with each other and develop a TOWS analysis, this is:

T-- threats-- What is happening in the macro environment that might generate a threat to our organization?

O-- opportunities-- What is happening in the macro environment that might generate opportunities for our organization?

W-- weakness-- Within the context of the micro environment, what are our weaknesses?

S-- strengths-- Within the context of the micro environment, what are our strengths?

These assess and use both these macro and micro factors, it is important that we do a TOWS analysis as it is the most accurate assessment of a company’s strengths and weaknesses that are undertaken on the basis of the opportunities and threats in the market.

In the marketing context session we learnt the importance and implications of undertaking the process of analysis in the right order and the use of high quality information to support market analysis.

Next we need to look at the Critical/Key Success Factors (KSF) and discuss as a group how we can use our strengths to capitalize on these opportunities, how we can use our strengths to minimize these threats, how can we remedy our weaknesses so that we might take advantage of these opportunities and how can we remedy our weaknesses so that we might minimize these threats. Once we have agreed on our KSF we need to put them in order of importance, including which are the most important opportunities and which are the most serious threats. We are still developing on all of our research and pinpointing the key parts in which we can use to back up our market analysis. We are then going to look into the effect of short, medium and long-term perspectives.

Kirstin Ledson, Chelsea Lane, Ross Lindley

11.00am 17/02/2013