Clothing Industry

(Marketing) Midterm Project: Industry Analysis To many marketing professionals the most important action prior to developing the marketing plan is to conduct a situation analysis. The analysis is an exploration of the current situation facing a firm. It may investigate a singular aspect of the marketing environment, or multiple dimensions. At the conclusion of a successful analysis, the reader should have a strong understanding of the particular aspect of the market environment under investigation, thus enabling the marketer to make intelligent business assumptions regarding gaps in offers, potential opportunities, and possible risks. Often this analysis is led by a probe of the external marketing environment using a five Cs framework. The five Cs in question are: Customer, Company, Competitors, Collaborators, and Context. – Customer: What consumers purchase the type of products the company produces? Of this mass of consumers, which target group of individuals or organizations should the firm sell to in order to achieve some specific revenue or unit sales performance objective? – Company: What are your firm”s chief Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Strengths? – Competitors: Those firms within an industry that challenge your firm for the attention of customers in the marketplace. – Collaborators: Those firms and individuals that partner with us to provide value-based offers to our target consumer audience. – Context: Those trends and shifts in the microeconomic environment that has influence on how our customers make purchase decisions. The external marketing environment includes shifts and trends of the below variables: – Economic – Technology uses and advances – Socio-cultural – Political environment – Legal/regulatory – Natural (raw materials) – Global developments and consumption demands Other times, it may of use to employ Porter”s Five Forces theory as a framework. Porter”s theory investigates the attractiveness of an industry. The five forces are: – Ease of entry into the industry – Suppliers power to raise prices – Buyer power of customers (ability to negotiate or influence lower prices) – Competitive rivalry and its intensity – Threat of substitution for products produces by industry competitors Your task with this midterm project is to select two variables in the external marketing environment and write a situation analysis of the industry based on the external variables chosen. The analysis should be written as an academic paper. An industry is defined as that collection of organizations that produce products or deliver services that are broadly similar. Examples are: – Entertainment industry – Automotive industry – Clothing industry – Cosmetics industry – Software industry Of course, each product category can have sub-categories, or sub-industries, such as, the sport”s car industry is a sub-industry of the automotive industry, or women”s apparel is arguably a sub-industry or category of the clothing industry. Please save your document as a Word in the following method. Last Name_First Name_Midterm. Submit paper to the Dropbox as prescribed in the syllabus. No paper will be graded that cannot be readily identified with its author. The Dropbox will submit the document to Turnit for an authenticity score. Any paper scoring above 10 percent will be subject to scrutiny as a possible infraction of the honesty code (plagiarism). Turnitin is not a perfect system for detecting academic dishonesty. And, graduate students should know when they are using the thoughts of another author without proper attribution. Nonetheless, the professor will be the final arbiter of whether the student has plagiarized or not. Format: Provide an analysis of the industry of your choice. Analysis should be written as an academic paper not just a collection of data bullet points. Your analysis should be presented in the following manner. – Cover page according to APA guidelines – No abstract is required – Double-spaced – Each paragraph indented according to APA guidelines – Times Roman 12-point type – 3 – 5 pages in length not including cover, reference, bibliography, and appendix pages – Use subtopic headings used to clarify and identify the various sections of the analysis – Use of attribution (in-text citation) where appropriate according to APA guidelines. – Reference page in accordance with APA guidelines. – A minimum of 5 qualified references are required. – Wikipedia is not accepted as a reference. – Bibliography page in accordance with APA guidelines. – A minimum of 10 qualified sources are required. – Wikipedia is not accepted as a source. Grading Criteria: The analysis will be assessed for its quality based on: – Adherence to the requirements noted in this project guide – The thoroughness of the analysis – Grammar and spelling – Ease in which the narrative may be read and understood – Logical flow and point of view – Strength and credibility of sources – Absence of plagiarism – Adherence to APA style guidelines Areas to Consider Industry Overview – Name of industry – General types of products produced or offered by the industry, i.e, product categories – States where firms within the industry are located (regions) – Size of industry in terms of annual revenue and people employed – Estimated difficulty in entering industry and why – Whether industry is growing or shrinking, and the cause for either trend – Strength of suppliers of goods or services to the industry – Strength of buyers – Threats to the industry External Factors How do trends associated with the external marketing variables chosen influence consumer buying decisions? What about their effect on production capabilities? Why are these trends occurring? What strategy or strategies might be used to address these trends? Gaps in Industry Offers Based on current general industry offers, what gaps in product or service offers are present? What type of product might address these identified gaps?