ASSESSMENT 2
Select a company of your choice, critically evaluate and interpret its strategic, international marketing activities, and assess how the company is well placed to compete globally. Your analysis, in the format of a report, should identify international marketing opportunities for this company. Additionally, you have to develop a creative marketing strategy to expand across the international market(s).
Your brief is to develop an outline global marketing strategy to enable it to challenge the existing competitors in the market. The task is:
- Critically and briefly evaluate the trends in the international market sector in which the company operates.
- Against the background of your answer to Question 1, comment on how well your chosen company is placed to develop globally.
- Advise the company on how to develop a sustainable long-term global marketing strategy. This activity focuses on possible strategic alternatives and the development of a global marketing strategy by companies.
Essentially the activity is about analyzing the basis of the competitive capability of the firms involved and thinking through how this has to develop and shift if they are to build and sustain a global competitive advantage. This gives you the opportunity to consider how a changing global competitive landscape modifies the competitive behavior of companies in their struggle for global competitive advantage. It is these issues and how the company you choose should resolve them that are explored in this activity.
It is suggested that the report is structured to include an introduction and the following sections:
Introduction
- Introducing the report.
- The company background information.
You should obtain an understanding of who the company is, where it comes from, and why it may be interesting to examine, as well as for general background information.
Section 1
- Trends in the environment and market for the sector.
- The market structure for the sector, including the geographic spread of products, customer segmentation, competitive positioning of key global players.
It is important to pay particular attention to the key trends affecting the development of the company you have chosen, and you will also need to gain an understanding of the marketing environment in which they are operating especially in the target market (cultural, economic, political… etc), and of the competition.
Section 2
- Summary of product and market focus, including reasons for the company’s domestic, regional, and international success to date.
- Basis of current competitive advantage.
- The strategic marketing challenges it is likely to face as it aims to improve its international competitive position.
Here, you will need to carry out some research to understand the company background, its activities and progress to date, and their competitive positioning. You are required to demonstrate your understanding of the global challenges (threats and opportunities) that the firm faces and you are encouraged to be creative in your response to the questions asked.
Section 3
- Recommendations on how to build sustainable competitive advantage in the future.
- Implementation actions that will be critical in building a competitive advantage.
The starting point for this section is articulating an overall vision and setting appropriate corporate objectives for the firm in terms of developing globally. The global marketing strategy that is developed should be based on a relevant response to the analysis you have developed in completing section 1 and 2.
Against the background of the firm’s capabilities, existing and potential future competition, the firm should consider the strategic options it has and the market entry method(s) that needs to be selected if it is to enter new markets, which will ensure the firm can build a globally competitive position in which its products and services are clearly differentiated from the competition.
Key decisions in the strategy development, that you may want to include, will relate to the degree to which the firm wishes and is able, to standardize its product and service offerings or needs to adapt them to the requirements of the local markets.
The products and services that will be the portfolio need to be chosen. You also need to consider how the recommendations made contribute to the development of a long-term global competitive advantage across the region and the implications your recommendations have for resource allocation and portfolio management for the specified company.
