Chapter 6 Chapter 4 Accurately grasping the marketing micro-environment

When formulating a marketing plan, the marketing department should take into account other departments of the company, such as top management, finance, research and development, procurement, production, accounting and other departments.All these interrelated departments make up the company's internal environment.Top management sets the company's mission, goals, overall strategy and policies.The marketing department makes decisions based on the planning of the top management department, and the marketing plan must be approved by the top management before it can be implemented. An enterprise is an economic unit that organizes production and management, and is a systematic organization.Enterprises should fully consider the environmental forces and various factors within the enterprise when carrying out marketing activities.Within the enterprise, functional departments such as planning, technology, procurement, production, marketing, quality inspection, finance, and logistics are generally set up. The work of each functional department and their coordination relationship will directly affect the marketing activities of the entire enterprise. .

Through the organizational structure of each enterprise, it can be found that the internal environment of the enterprise is composed of the top management of the enterprise and various internal organizations. The success or failure of the marketing department has a lot to do with the support of the enterprise leaders.For example, the board of directors and the general manager are the top leaders of the company and are responsible for formulating the tasks, target business strategies and policies of the entire company. Therefore, the marketing department manager can only make decisions within the scope limited by the board of directors and the general manager. During the process, the opinions of the board of directors and the general manager must also be followed.

Additionally, marketing managers need to work collaboratively with managers from other functions.For example, the research and development department needs to develop safe and popular products, which requires marketing managers to participate in the research and development, because the marketing department directly deals with the market and knows the needs of the market well; This will have a major impact on the plans and actions of the marketing department.Therefore, it can be said that a good internal environment is the prerequisite for the smooth development of corporate marketing. Founded in 1998, Jiuzhou Real Estate Co., Ltd. is affiliated to Gezhouba Hydropower Plant. It is a limited liability company mainly engaged in real estate development and property management.Jiuzhou Company carried out structural adjustment and asset reorganization in October 1998, making the company large-scale and professional.However, the company's internal environmental conditions hinder further development:

In Jiuzhou Real Estate Company, the general manager is in charge of personnel alone, and as the decision-making leader of an enterprise, it is impossible for the general manager to fully focus on personnel management, and it is impossible to make training for every department or every person in the enterprise. planning, and too much centralization of power.In addition, Kyushu Company is trying to pass the 1,509,000 quality verification system, and the technical department needs to be strengthened.What's more fatal is that it does not have a dedicated sales department and lacks an after-sales service department.Moreover, the company is financially constrained by the Gezhouba General Factory. Gezhouba has appointed financial supervision. Only Dazhong Property and Ziyang Property have very little authority in its subsidiaries, and the other branches have no financial department.

From the perspective of the overall structure, Kyushu Real Estate has 8 levels in the small level (job level), and 5 levels in the large level (organizational level). Generally speaking, the small level is divided into 8 levels in the direct command system, and only 6 levels in the functional management system. class.Kyushu Real Estate Co., Ltd. has too many organizational levels.It can be seen that the organizational structure of Kyushu Real Estate is not reasonable enough, it does not pay enough attention to marketing, and there is no good coordination among various internal departments, all of which need to be improved.

Due to the lack of scientific internal organizational structure of Kyushu Real Estate, various departments cannot form a good coordination relationship, and it is difficult to form a reasonable check and balance of power and responsibility. These have seriously restricted the development of the company's marketing work and future development.When an enterprise formulates marketing plans and carries out marketing activities, it must be able to coordinate and handle the contradictions between various departments.For example, in the process of implementing the marketing plan, it will inevitably involve the demand and use of funds, the allocation of funds in different products and different marketing activities, and the risk of sales forecasts and marketing plans. These issues are related to the business of the financial department. related.This requires that the various departments within the enterprise can communicate effectively, and the management can coordinate and handle the relationship between the various departments well, so as to create a good corporate environment, so as to better achieve the marketing goals.

It can be seen that the quality of enterprise managers and employees, financial status and capital strength, equipment status and production capacity, the development status of various departments and the establishment of mutual cooperation and coordination mechanisms, etc., can directly affect the enterprise to provide consumers with the best products and services. ability to serve.The enterprise is a whole, and each functional department is a part of the whole, and the parts make up the whole, but it is difficult for scattered individuals to organize into a cohesive whole.Therefore, in addition to the smooth operation of various departments within the enterprise, effective communication and cooperation between each other is the key to forming a good internal environment.

Suppliers are an important link in the company's entire customer "value delivery system".They provide the resources companies need to produce products and provide services.Changes in suppliers have important implications for marketing, and marketing must focus on supply availability—supply shortages or delays, worker strikes, and other factors.These factors affect sales in the short run and customer satisfaction in the long run. Suppliers that provide specific raw materials, auxiliary materials, equipment, energy, labor, capital and other resources for the production of enterprises can become suppliers.The status of suppliers can have a substantial impact on the marketing activities of enterprises.For example, changes in the price of raw materials provided by suppliers will affect the company's production costs, profits and product prices, and affect the company's market competitiveness; the quantity and delivery time of raw materials provided by suppliers can affect the production and operation of the company. Normally, the quality of the raw materials provided can affect the quality of the company's products, and it will also affect the sales of the company's products, which in turn will affect the company's reputation among customers.

In the company's entire customer value delivery system, suppliers play an important role as a link, and most marketers regard suppliers as partners who create and deliver customer value.Therefore, on the one hand, enterprises should pay attention to maintaining the relationship with suppliers, not only when resources are in short supply, but also when resources are abundant; Supply channels make necessary adjustments.Supplier relationship management is the starting point of the enterprise value chain and determines the entire process of value creation. Zhejiang Baida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was established in 1994. It is a private enterprise separated from the restructuring of the former state-owned Xianju Chemical Factory. It is a private high-tech enterprise that focuses on the production of hormone drugs. The body is a foreign trade export enterprise.Since its establishment, the sales volume of the company has been rising year after year. In 2005, the sales volume reached 130 million US dollars. It has rapidly developed from an unknown small private pharmaceutical company to an excellent high-tech private company. During this period, the company has won many awards.

The raw materials of hormone products are saponins extracted from the natural plant turmeric, and then the molecular structure is improved to synthesize the target product. The origin of turmeric is only grown in large quantities in Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan, and it is also the world's supply of hormone raw materials On the ground, the concentration of suppliers is relatively high, and there are almost no substitutes for the products of suppliers. The starting raw material of the hormone industry is turmeric, so the products of suppliers are very key input factors of production. These factors will greatly enhance the supply The bargaining power of suppliers and the ability to control downstream manufacturers.On the other hand, the supplier’s products are all raw materials extracted from natural plants, and the products are not much different. Due to the high technical barriers and high risks of downstream synthesis, the supplier’s forward integration ability is relatively low. These factors can reduce the bargaining power of suppliers.In short, for Zhejiang Baida Pharmaceutical, the bargaining power of suppliers is relatively strong, which poses a certain threat to the enterprise.Therefore, the company should pay full attention to the micro factor of suppliers.

Through the analysis of the top 100 pharmaceutical suppliers, it can be found that the analysis of suppliers by enterprises should be comprehensive, including not only the industry structure of suppliers, but also the analysis of their product characteristics and forward integration capabilities. These are used to comprehensively evaluate suppliers to determine the impact on the enterprise. Specifically, the enterprise should maintain a good relationship with the supplier, keep abreast of and grasp the supplier's situation; it must also pay close attention to and analyze the supplier's price change trend, so that the enterprise can respond flexibly; in addition, It is necessary to understand the supplier's products and analyze the quality standards of their products to ensure the quality of their own products, so as to win consumers and the market. Continuously strengthen suppliers' quality control of products, and conduct effective selection, review, and regular or irregular audits of suppliers to ensure that they can provide high-quality and reasonably priced materials and services in a long-term and stable manner.The treatment of diseases must start from the source. Similarly, the entire production management of the enterprise must also be started from the source - the supplier, so as to make a good start for the implementation of the company's marketing activities. Marketing intermediaries help companies promote, sell and distribute their products to final buyers.Market intermediaries include dealers, goods storage and transportation companies, marketing service agencies and financial intermediaries.Like suppliers, market intermediaries are an important part of a company's overall value delivery system. Companies that assist companies in promoting and distributing their products to final buyers can be counted as marketing intermediaries, including intermediaries (merchant intermediaries with commodity ownership and agency intermediaries without commodity ownership), entity distribution companies (transportation Enterprises, warehousing enterprises), marketing service agencies (advertising companies, marketing research companies, marketing consulting companies, etc.) and financial intermediaries (banks, trust companies, insurance companies, etc.). Market intermediaries are the link between enterprise production and market consumption. Without these intermediaries, there will be contradictions between production and consumption, such as space separation, time separation, and information separation, and these intermediaries are better than enterprises in their respective businesses. It is more professional and has lower operating costs. Therefore, only with the assistance of various marketing intermediaries can these contradictions be effectively resolved.Of course, when dealing with these intermediaries, there is also a game of interests. Therefore, enterprises should pay more attention to the management of their cooperative relations. The Coca-Cola Company signed a ten-year pact with Wendy's that made Coca-Cola the fast food chain's sole soft drink provider.In this contract, Coca-Cola promised Wendy's not only its soft drinks, but also strong marketing support. In addition to soft drinks, Wendy's got a cross-functional team of 50 Coca-Cola employees dedicated to understanding every nuance of Wendy's.Wendy's also benefited from financial support from a marketing partnership with The Coca-Cola Company.In addition, Coca-Cola provides an astonishing amount of consumer research data for its partners.Coca-Cola does everything in its power to understand beverage consumers and to ensure that this knowledge is also available to partners. Coca-Cola provided its partners with the results of the consumer research, and Coca-Cola analyzed the demographics of every ZIP code across the United States and used the information to create a software program called Solver.By answering questions about target customer segments, Wendy's franchisees can determine which Coca-Cola brands are more popular in their area.Coca-Cola also studied the design of price tags to better understand what layout, typeface, type size, color and visual effects would entice consumers to buy more food and drink.Such a close cooperative relationship has brought Coca-Cola a 68% market share of the entire soft drink market in the United States, compared with 22% for PepsiCo. Coca-Cola's professionalism in beverage consumption has not only brought valuable research data and more customers to Wendy's, but at the same time, Coca-Cola has also brought itself a considerable market share through its cooperation with Wendy's.In today's society, corporate marketers should be able to realize the importance of cooperation with intermediaries, not simply use them as sales channels and other functional organizations, but pay more attention to the added value brought by cooperation.Conversely, if the company's marketing activities do not get the cooperation of the relevant marketing intermediary, it may be in trouble. For enterprises, intermediaries, as one of the micro-environmental factors, also have a complex relationship of interest competition and mutual benefit. The master Kotler once gave a classic explanation for the handling of this relationship: "If a If a company squeezes profits inappropriately from its suppliers, if it crams too much product into distributors, if it wins the supply chain out of its partners, then the company will fail. Shrewd The company will cooperate with suppliers and distributors to better serve the final customers." Win-win and mutual benefit is the most pleasant result of cooperation, and it is also the best way. For intermediaries, enterprises should have a long-term vision and strive for long-term stability Create conditions for the micro-environment, so that it can become one of the important driving forces in the process of achieving strategic goals. A company should study its customer market carefully.The consumer market consists of individuals and households who purchase goods and services solely for their own consumption.The business market purchases products and services for further processing, or for use in the production process.The reseller market buys products and services for resale at a profit.Each market has its own characteristics, which need to be carefully researched by the salesperson. The concept of "customer" is generated in the exchange of goods. Generally speaking, customers spend money to buy products or services, and what they want to obtain is use value, that is, they have corresponding needs to be satisfied.Of course, there are also some customers who buy goods for resale, but if this exchange continues, it will eventually fall on consumer demand, so those who buy goods or services to meet consumer demand are customers. "Customer is God", this is the most reasonable saying in the marketing industry, that is, to put the interests of customers first, think of what customers think, and be anxious about what customers are anxious about, in order to better meet customer needs, and only in this way can we get customers. Advocacy and market recognition.In marketing, the relationship between enterprises and customers is actually a relationship between production and consumption, and all marketing activities of enterprises are to meet the needs of customers.Therefore, the needs of customers are the starting point of the production and operation activities of enterprises.When customer needs change, the company must make corresponding changes, even strategic changes, so that the company's products and services can always meet the needs of customers. In the United States, 63% of fast food customers surveyed complained that few items on the menu were healthy, and 36% said they would visit fast food restaurants less frequently because of their own health concerns.As a market leader, McDonald's has often endured such criticism.In response to these challenges, in early 2003 McDonald's announced a series of planned measures that would better align the company with market realities. For example, in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for the Study of Diabetes and the Society for Nutrition Education, McDonald's designed a nutrition education program for children called "What's on Your Plate."Through the designed cartoon characters, teach children how to maintain a balanced diet and enjoy a healthy lifestyle in various media.In addition, McDonald's pays more attention to health-oriented menus. For example, it canceled the super-size meal and promoted "stay active, admit happy meal"-a main course salad, a glass of Dasani water, a pedometer (by measuring daily steps A machine to measure the amount of physical activity).McDonald's also offers Chicken McNuggets, low-fat milkshakes and apple pie.At the same time, in some well-known magazines, it promotes its salads, milk, juices, and some health tips to women and children who pay attention to nutrition. McDonald's efforts to adapt to changing market conditions have paid off.In early 2004, the company began to show steady, if surprising, sales and profit growth. In the first quarter of 2004, McDonald's attracted 2.3 million more customers per day than it did a year ago, and revenue increased 56 percent. In the face of unfavorable market public opinion and changing market demand, McDonald's has always maintained the concept of customer first, and made timely adjustments to its marketing strategy, and finally regained the recognition of customers.In fact, satisfying customers is the superficial phenomenon of operation, while satisfying demand is the essence of operation.Focusing on customers is to compete in the existing market, the purpose is to compete for share; focusing on demand, not only to meet current customer needs, but also to discover some potential needs, so as to start cultivating and developing the market, from scratch Yes, it is a process of opening up new markets. Although the essence of business operation is to meet customer needs, the carrier of demand is customer groups, and it will change with the changes of these groups' material, emotional, will and other factors. Therefore, the investigation and analysis of customer groups is a must for every enterprise. work to be done.Changes in the needs of customer groups will lead to the direction of market demand, which will naturally have a major impact on the product design, marketing and promotion of the company.Customers can be described as the "parents of food and clothing" of the enterprise. Only by respecting and maintaining the relationship with them, and even predicting and guiding their consumption behavior, can we become a market leader respected by customers. The marketing concept holds that if a company wants to be successful, it must do better than its competitors and make customers more satisfied.Therefore, the marketing department must not only consider the needs of target customers, but also leave an impression of superiority over competitors in the minds of consumers in order to gain strategic advantages. This is a competitive society, not only in life, but also in business.As the interest relationship among modern enterprises becomes more and more complicated, their competitive relationship becomes complicated, and the means of competition between them are even more dazzling.In a broad sense, competitors of an enterprise come from many aspects, and there is a competitive relationship in a certain sense between the enterprise and its customers and suppliers; in a narrow sense, competitors only refer to those products that are similar to those provided by the enterprise. Other businesses that have similar products or services and serve similar target customers.Generally, the research on competitors is aimed at the narrow sense, because the relationship between enterprises and suppliers is more cooperative. Competitors of enterprises can be roughly divided into four types: desire competitors, parallel competitors, product form competitors and brand competitors.Wish competitors will offer different products to meet different consumer needs; while parallel competitors produce the same product, they aim at the same consumer needs; product form competitors produce the same product, but provide Different specifications, models, and styles; brand competitors are competitors with the same other factors, except for different brands.The reason for classifying competitors is that different strategies need to be adopted for different competitors due to their different competitive characteristics. In 2006, China's mobile communication market changed from its usual surface tranquility, and suddenly became "full of blood and murderous intent", and staged a series of exciting and fierce battles in succession, and the two sides in the battle were the communication giants - China China Unicom and China Mobile. A market in which there are only two players offering similar products with only certain differences is known in economics as a duopoly.According to theory, this duopoly model should be an agreement between the two parties to share the market together.However, China Unicom is obviously unwilling to maintain its status of "focusing on participation" in China's mobile communications market, but is trying to be on an equal footing with China Mobile.But it is obviously hopeless to rely on the original GSM130 network, so China Unicom has taken a milestone move-introducing CDMA technology and becoming one of the few telecom operators in the world that operates two networks at the same time.China's telecommunications market is not a perfectly competitive market, and is largely influenced by policies and constraints of the system; although the future telecommunications market still has a large room for development, the speed of development obviously cannot be compared with the past. The number of new users will gradually decrease.This is not good for China Unicom. As the world's largest telecommunications operator, China Mobile has the first-mover advantage in the mobile communications market and has the largest and best-quality mobile phone users. Therefore, both business capacity and profitability far exceed China Unicom; China Mobile has strengthened its own brand through continuous technological upgrades, development of new services and data services, optimization of network quality and service enhancements, gradually strengthening its core competitiveness and maintaining its competitive advantage in the competition.However, with the advent of the 3G era, a number of telecom operators are participating in the competition in China's mobile communication market. The competition is extremely fierce. It is not easy for any telecom operator to maintain an absolute advantage in the competition. The competition in China's mobile communication industry has developed from duopoly competition to current multi-polypoly competition. The change in the competition pattern is the result of the interest game between the market participants, or a result of marketization.However, when it comes to competition, people always think of negative adjectives such as "cruel" and "tragic", but in an economy, a market environment that lacks competition will definitely not mean anything good.A good competitive environment can promote the survival of the fittest in the industry, and promote the development of enterprises in the industry in pursuit of each other, thereby promoting the rapid development of the social economy.Of course, from the perspective of individual enterprises, competition means threats, so most enterprises try their best to defeat their competitors. In a fiercely competitive environment, for all companies, there is no one invincible marketing strategy, because each company faces different competitors, and there are differences in its own factors such as its own size, and its position in the industry Also different.For example, companies that are industry leaders can adopt strategies that small companies cannot adopt due to some of their own advantages.But big has big advantages, and small also has small benefits. Small companies can also adopt some high-return strategies that large companies cannot adopt.But no matter what the strategy is, under the premise of fair competition, the strategy that can gain more market share than the opponent is what the company needs most. The company's marketing environment also includes various publics.The public is any group that has an actual or potential interest in or influence on an organization's ability to achieve its objectives.A company can develop a plan for its primary public just as it develops a marketing plan for its customer market.If a company wants to elicit a particular response from a certain public, such as goodwill, word of mouth, or human and financial contributions, it must offer that public something attractive enough to achieve its goals. For a business, there are not only competitors competing for the target market, but also various publics who are interested in the way it does business, and they either welcome it, or oppose it, or do nothing.These attitudes of the public towards the enterprise will have a huge impact on the marketing activities of the enterprise. It may help to enhance the ability of the enterprise to achieve its goals, or it may hinder the growth of this ability. Far-sighted companies will take specific measures, work hard to handle the relationship with the public, and win the support and preference of the public, so as to create a harmonious and stable social environment for themselves.Of course, the maintenance of public relations is a "project" that requires long-term attention. If it is not careful, it will often lead to the consequence of "one mistake and eternal hatred". In 2007, the well-known 58-year-old Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott violated the company's professional ethics policy and accepted commercial bribes from suppliers.She also blamed other senior executives at the same time.This lawsuit has already caused an uproar in the US retail industry, and also pushed Wal-Mart to the forefront again. Wal-Mart's public image has fallen into a huge crisis. Procurement corruption is a cancer in the retail industry, but all bosses and CEOs who know a little bit know it well.However, few people dare to touch this nerve.Most people keep it secret.According to the forecast of relevant American media, if Wal-Mart's expansion pace in the next 15 years is the same as that of the previous 15 years, then its sales will reach the gross national product of Japan 15 years later.Currently, Wal-Mart's sales revenue is close to a staggering $350 billion.Ironically, however, the image of this behemoth in the public eye has been declining.People's fear of it is also growing day by day, and it is under pressure from all aspects of society.Even Wall Street has started calling Wal-Mart an "irresponsible company."In fact, since the end of 2003, this commercial "dinosaur" has been continuously criticized by the global media.In the United States, many people feel that they "should not buy Wal-Mart products" because they feel that these products are really too cheap and "made with the blood and sweat of workers". The establishment of a public image does not happen overnight, but its destruction often occurs overnight. The collapse of Wal-Mart's public image this time not only brought a huge impact on its company's sales, but also forced it to spend a lot of energy and cost to slowly build a new brand in the company. recovery from this crisis. The public image crisis of Wal-Mart is a good example of the influence of the public. The attitude of the public towards the enterprise sometimes even determines the fate of the enterprise.According to the way the public influences enterprises, it can be roughly divided into seven categories—financial public, media public, government public, private public, local public, general public, and internal public.Since various types of public have different characteristics, their ways and means of influence are also different.For example, the financial public mainly refers to banks, investment companies and shareholders, etc., which can affect a company’s ability to obtain funds; the media public includes newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, etc., which can affect corporate image by publishing news, features, and editorials; The government and the public can formulate policies and regulations on products, advertising, etc. to affect the operation of enterprises.It can be seen that the public is a complex micro-environmental factor, and it is very important to create a good public environment. As the saying goes, "Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it." In shopping malls, the public is like running water, and enterprises are like canoes sailing on water.If you want to sail smoothly, you must be familiar with "water quality", that is, bring benefits to the public in order to gain public support.In short, if you want to achieve success in marketing, you must maintain and handle the relationship between all parties, and try to ensure that the interests of all parties in the micro-environmental factors are not damaged.