External Environmental Analysis -
Overview:
You are the Vice President of Marketing for General Mills. The President would like you to conduct an external environmental analysis of the Canadian cereal category.
Objective:
The objective of this analysis is to determine the potential positive or negative implications these "uncontrollable" factors might have on your existing marketing plan and to develop appropriate marketing recommendations/action plans.
As a result you will complete an external environmental analysis for all six external environmental sub-variables including;
• Economic,
• Political / legal,
• Social,
• Demographic,
• Competition,
• And Technology.
You must select two of the most relevant variables from each of the 6 major sub-variables list that I have provided (see next page): External Environmental Implications Document.
Explain for each of the sub-variables you have selected the positive or negative implications the environmental factor could have on the cereal category.
Also provide recommendations (action plans) as to what you plan to do to alter your current marketing plan to address this implication, again based on the variables you selected.
Report Requirements:
• Provide a word processed professional report outlining the impact, rationale, and recommendations for a marketing plan.
• Your report must be five pages in length, single spaced with a font size of 12, including cover and reference pages.
• Your cover page should include the report title, your name, student #, course code, section number, professor name and a copy of the rubric below.
• Your report will be graded out of 100 marks and will represent 10% of your final grade.
• The report must be authored individually by you a MKTG 116 -007 Fall 2015 student to be graded
• Place your finished report into the MKTG 116 assignment e-drop box before midnight October 2nd, 2015, and also bring a paper copy of your typed assignment to class for your professor.
• Late assignments will NOT be accepted unless extenuating circumstances exist with supporting documentation.
External Environmental - Implications Document
Economic:
• Unemployment Nationally 7%.
• Unemployment 13 % for Generation "Y".
• Consumer confidence lowest in 15 years.
• Average salary increase in the 1-1.5% per year.
Political/legal:
• Canadian Government limits imports to 30% of all products sold in Canada.
• Canadian Government requires companies to reduce sugar content by 60% in all products.
• Canadian Government limits all T.V. advertising directed to people 25 years and younger.
Social:
• 80-90 % of women 35 years plus working full /part time in workforce.
• Teen available spending power continues to rise.
• New Canadians are driving force behind population growth.
• 62.5% of Canada's newest immigrant population live in one of Canada's three largest cities - Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (2011 Census - Statistics Canada)
Competition:
• Canadian Market place is being dominated by large U.S. retailers.
• There is a big emphasis on reducing consumer prices with discount offers.
• New emerging competitors from India and Asia exist in the Canadian market place.
Demographic:
• Baby Boomers are working longer, have higher disposable income, and limited technical skills.
• People 65 Plus - have huge disposable income.
• Baby Boomers are more health conscious than previous generations.
• Generation ‘X' will continue to have busy lives with young families.
Technology:
• Gartner consulting predicts that "big data" will drive $232B globally in Information Technology spending through until 2016.
• Wearable tech brand use is on the rise in 2014 with a focus on health and fitness.
• Tablets: +52% early stage rapid unit growth (Morgan Stanley Research May 2014)
• Mobile Data Traffic +81% accelerating growth...video = strong driver (Cisco Visual Networking Index May 2014)