Marketing-Overview and Current Climate-Competition-Retail Market Strategy-SWOT analysis
Outline
- Overview and Current Climate (30 pts)
Things to examine in this section:
What is your retailer’s goods and services category? Describe the current climate and situation that your retailer finds itself in as it attempts to compete. Describe what is occurring in the industry. Provide a brief overview of the retail sector in which the retailer operates. What environmental and economic factors are affecting the retailer? Describe competitive pressures (you will go into more detail later about specific competitors), changing demographics and buying preferences, consumer behavior issues, image issues, etc. that affects this retailer and how they conduct business? How has the industry changed as a result of eCommerce and technology?
Take time to do this. It is the basis of your analysis. Write this as though your reader knows nothing about the company. Think of this section as setting the stage for the remainder of the paper.
- Retail Organization and Audit and Corporate Strategy (40 pts)
Things to examine in this section:
What is their business model (how do they choose to operate)? What is their retail concept? What is their corporate strategy? What are their goals? What parts of their business are growing and generate the most revenue? How is your retailer seeking to increase revenue in the future? There is a lot of industry financial information out there…be specific.
Who (if any) is the parent company of your retailer? What retailers are part of their portfolio? What is the parent company’s overall market strategy and how does this retailer fit into their overall strategy?
- Competition (30 pts)
Things to examine in this section:
Who are the retailers’ competitors (both direct and indirect)? How does your retailer compare to these competitors in terms of its size, market dominance/share, sales, profitability, etc.? What is your retailer’s competitive strength? How do they try to compete? Are their strategies that have not worked for them? What retailers have they identified as competitive threats? Why?
- Retail Market Strategy (50 pts)
You need to touch on each of these bolded areas in this section. The questions/prompts are provided as a guide for preparing a complete analysis.
- Target Audience– Who is their target audience? (Describe demographically and psychographically, if possible) How does this compare to the competition?
- What imagedo they want to convey? How do they attempt to position themselves in the minds of consumers in the market? What is their current image in the industry and in the minds of consumers? Is this image working for them? How does this compare with the image of competitors?
- How do they make use of technology(web and ecommerce, supply chain management, information systems, etc.)? How has technology affected the way they conduct business?
- What is their global presenceand strategy? What countries have they entered? How successful have they been expanding into these countries? What obstacles have they faced?
- What is their location strategy? Why have they chosen this strategy?
- What is their approach to managing human resources?
- Describe their merchandising strategy– how they buy, what they buy, breadth vs depth of merchandise, etc. How is it reflected in their financial strategy?
- What is their pricing strategyand how does this affect their profitability?
- Describe their approach to advertising and sales promotions. Has it been effective for them?
- What challengesdoes your retailer face in terms of the retail strategy variables just described? Do some appear to be working better than others?
- Mini SWOT (20 pts)
Summarize your retailer’s primary strengths and weaknesses and support your assessment. What are their biggest challenges now and in the future? What do they view as their opportunities for the future? How are they preparing to meet those challenges and opportunities?
- Looking to the Future (10 pts)
What do you think the future holds for this retailer? If you were hired as the CEO, what specific strategies would you pursue in the future for this retailer? What opportunities would you capitalize on? Why?
Citation Requirements (10 pts)
You need to cite a minimum of 7 source
Format (10 pts)
- Papers should be 8-12 pages double-spaced; excluding references.
- You can choose the fonts and margins that you feel are most professional and easy to read. This can be all paragraph form or with a mix of some bullet points, graphs, infographics, etc. Whatever you feel presents your information most fully. I am not looking for fancy I am looking for depth of information and analysis. Please no external links or videos.
- You need to use headersand sub-headers for each of the 6 topic areas.
- No cover page is necessary
- Format is worth 10 points