BSS058-Strategy and the Global Competitive Environment Assignment Sample

Introduction 

Analysis of industry and trends are essential for companies in adopting future trends in an effective way for gaining a high rate of annual turnover. In relation to this, industry analysis also helps in determining the major strengths and weaknesses of this industry.

In the opinion of Ungerman et al. (2018), marketing industry has a major market share in global perspectives and has a high rate of future opportunities.

Thus, this study focuses on the industry analysis and future trends of marketing industry. Thus, a brief industry background, future trends and developments of marketing industry, identification of two scenario dimensions and selection of appropriate tools are involved in this context.

Industry Background 

Marketing industry of UK has occupied the major market values and strong hold in country’s environment. It has been evident that revenue growth of marketing industry has crossed the threshold of £30bn in this year (ALRIGHT MEDIA, 2022). Thus, it has been found that different marketing organisations of UK has mostly focused on the retail sector for developing their advertisements and sharing product launching news along with increasing their brand awareness.

It has been found that there are above 2500 marketing companies present in UK (Eveleigh, 2022). Marketing industry of UK such as “The SEO Works”, “Favoured” and “Bursts Digital” involve a majority of technological advancements for offering high facilities to their client companies.

Marketing industry of UK thus has increased its customer growth by 20% in UK by 2022 (ALRIGHT MEDIA, 2022). These companies often involve technologies like “Artificial Intelligence”, “Conversion Optimisation”, “Search Engine Marketing”, “Remarketing” and “Email Marketing”.

These often ensure effective marketing options for their client companies in order to increase their customer engagements.

Future trends and developments in marketing industry 

There are different future trends and developments, which can emerge in marketing industry, which can help the marketing industry in expanding its businesses and marketing holding in this country. As per the views of Bleier et al. (2020), marketing industry is a high scope sector as it includes a high rate of innovation, uniqueness and creative decision making.

It has been found, proper evolutions of digital marketing approaches can assist marketing companies in enabling client companies in retaining customers and increasing customer growth. It can be acknowledged that at the time of COVID–19, it can be helpful for these companies in gaining proper benefits. Therefore, there are different future trends and technologies like integrated AI, augmented reality and virtual reality.

Artificial Intelligence or (AI) has been integrating day by day by increasing its efficiencies and facilities. In this account, integrated AI can offer human-like calls to customers, chances of being hyper-personalised through individual product recommendations, customer assistance suggestions and smart recommendations of contents.

In this account, it can be stated that client companies of marketing organisations of UK can gain a major customer growth and customer satisfaction rate by gaining a high rate of facilities. On the other hand, in case of virtual reality and augmented reality, these can help these marketing companies in offering businesses in understanding preferences of customers and determining potential customers in a new market.

Other than this, voice marketing and proper analytical decision making can evolve marketing activities of this industry in an effective way. As included by Perkin (2022), data driven decision making is common in marketing activities, henceforth improvements of it can be effective for marketing companies with the help of analytics.

Thus data driven decision making can be developed in an improved way by launching actual personal customised products for individual customers by improving analytical capacity in case of customers’ opinions and replies. Other than this, voice marketing can be developed by using voice assistants.

Identification of two scenario dimensions 

Scenario 1: Technological advancements

Technological advancements like integrated AI, virtual reality, augmented reality and voice marketing can be developed in marketing activities for increasing customers’ satisfaction by modifying their purchasing intentions within client customers.

Therefore, for handling these, skilled employees are needed in marketing companies who have technological skills as well as innovation skills. Thus, marketing companies of UK like PPC GEEKS and Spin Brand can adopt these technological advancements for gaining a high rate of clients towards their companies due to skilled employee recruitments.

On the other hand, as stated by Samiilenko et al. (2021), networking stability and budget stability can be managed within marketing companies for gaining a high rate of stability in utilising marketing technologies. Therefore, these two also need to be handled by adopting future trends in technological advancements.

Scenario 2: Data Driven Decision Making

Data driven decision making also is an effective key area regarding the future trends of marketing. As included by Perkin (2022), Data driven decision making involves skilled employees, proper budget and utilisation of social media platforms.

Marketing organisations thus can include employees who have the skills regarding analytical thinking, problem solving and strategic decision making, steady cash flow and posting surveys and different customer connecting posts on social media platforms.

Therefore, this is another essential scenario which is found from the analysis of future trends and developments within marketing industry.

Analysis through appropriate tools

1:  PESTLE 

Figure 1: PESTLE Analysis

(Source: Influenced by Shtal et al. 2018)

Table 1: PESTLE Framework

(Source: Created by Author)

2: Porter’s five forces 

Figure 2: Porter’s Five Forces

(Source: Influenced by Hole et al. 2019)

Table 2: Porter’s five forces

(Source: Created by Author)

In case of bargaining power of suppliers is low within marketing industry of UK as there are huge numbers of suppliers for providing proper marketing resources. As determined by Terech (2018), marketing companies involve resources of different technologies and materials like computers, business cards, brochures and catalogues. In this aspect, due to huge amount of suppliers available, marketing organisations of UK gain their required resources in an easy way so that bargaining power of suppliers is low in this industry. On the other hand, bargaining power of buyers is moderate in marketing industry. On one hand, in UK, there are more than 2500 marketing companies (Eveleigh, 2022). Henceforth client companies have an immense amount of options for marketing activities. On the other hand, there are 3.1 million companies which need marketing strategies in an effective way for engaging majority of customers. Thus client companies are moderate as per context of marketing industry of UK. Marketing companies has taken strategies of diversification in approaches on a rapid basis for retaining them. Furthermore, competitive rivalry is high in marketing industry of UK as there are high rates of marketing agencies within UK. Therefore, marketing agencies can use pricing strategies and product quality enhancement strategies for gaining a high rate of competitive advantages. Finally, threats of substitutes and threats of new entrants are high because there is a low amount of investments needed in this industry. These can be reduced by including proper brand awareness and customer retention.

3: Scenario planning 

Figure 3: Scenario Planning

(Source: Influenced by Oliver and Parrett, 2018)

Scenario planning is an effective framework for understanding possible driving forces, critical uncertainties, plausible scenarios as well as implications and paths. As opined by Oliver and Parrett (2018), scenario planning can help in determining strengths and weaknesses of future adaptation of a scenario. For this study, implementation of advanced technologies is considered as the scenario for the marketing industry. In case of driving forces, preferences of customers and major advantages of advanced technologies are main driving forces of technology adaptation in marketing industry. On the other hand, as per context of critical uncertainties, privacy leak and online breaching are major critical uncertainties of marketing industry.  Plausible scenario can be the challenges of marketing companies at the time of having improper technological skills of employees, it can develop major resource mishandling there. Besides that, marketing companies can use implications and paths by using strategies of recruitment management and giving training to employees.

4: Swot analysis 

Table 3: SWOT Analysis

(Source: Created by Author)

5: Ansoff’s matrix 

Figure 4: Ansoff Matrix

(Source: Influenced by Thompson, 2019)

In case of market penetration, marketing companies can increase their customer and revenue growth by increasing its service quality. Marketing companies can increase their service quality by using differentiation strategies and pricing approaches. Other than this, market development can be handled by marketing companies by including different customer segmentation like retail sector, manufacturing sector and hospitality industry. Furthermore, product development can be involved here by investing in research and developments for technological advancements. Finally, diversification can be developed in these companies by including related and unrelated diversification in their service provision.

6: Cascade of choices 

Figure 5: Cascade of Choice

(Source: Influenced by Zhou et al. 2021)

Cascade of choice is an important framework of strategy toolbox as this can help marketing industry of UK in developing major strategies for meeting goals. As described by Zhou et al. (2021), Cascade of choice involves needs of strategy implementation in organisations. Goals and aspirations of marketing agencies are to create interests for the majority of people towards their client companies and thus to increase customer growth of their client companies. On the other hand, marketing companies play within retail sectors and manufacturing sectors majorly. Marketing agencies can win within the marketing industry by involving cost-effective services and including service differentiation on a rapid basis. Besides that, marketing industry of this company can include configuration by including a high rate of capabilities in technology implementation. Finally, priority initiatives can be developed by recruiting skilled employees, maintaining a steady budget and network flow in working environment. In accordance with this, marketing companies can use this for achieving their desired goals.

Conclusion

From the above discussions, this study can conclude that marketing agencies of UK have major future scopes and opportunities for improving their marketing initiatives by using technological advancements such as AI, virtual reality and augmented reality. On the other hand, from Porter’s five forces, bargaining power of suppliers is high, bargaining power of buyers is moderate, competitive rivalry, threats of new entrants and threats of substitutes are high as per context of marketing industry of UK. From, SWOT analysis, it has been found that these companies have high competition but high customer growth. These agencies further have high opportunities of technological advancements but have threats in privacy leaking and online breaching.

Reference list

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Perkin, N., (2022). Agile Marketing: Unlock Adaptive and Data-driven Marketing for Long-term Success. Kogan Page Publishers.

Samiilenko, H., Bonyar, S., Ivanova, N., Khudolei, V. and Kukhtyk, S., (2021). Features of creative marketing in the conditions of the innovative economy development. Laplage em Revista, 7(3), pp.89-102.

Shtal, T.V., BURIAK, M.M., AMIRBEKULY, Y., UKUBASSOVA, G.S., KASKIN, T.T. and TOIBOLDINOVA, Z.G., (2018). Methods of analysis of the external environment of business activities. Revista espacios, 39(12), pp. 1-9.

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Terech, A., (2018). An introduction to marketing and branding. Generations, 42(1), pp.45-49.

THE COMPANY WAREHOUSE (2022), How many businesses are there in the UK?. Available at: thecompanywarehouse.co.uk/blog/how-many-businesses-are-there-in-the-uk#:~:text=Companies%20House%2C%20who%20keep%20the,which%202.8%20million%20are%20active [Accessed on 10 June 2022].

Thompson, I., (2019). Ansoff Matrix. In The Procurement Models Handbook. 12(2), (pp. 45-47). Routledge.

Ungerman, O., Dedkova, J. and Gurinova, K., (2018). The impact of marketing innovation on the competitiveness of enterprises in the context of industry 4.0. Journal of competitiveness, 10(2), p.132.

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