Bài 2_Phần 2

Summary

The lesson explains how the marketing environment affects a business. It distinguishes between factors a company can influence and factors it must monitor and respond to. Both types of factors can create opportunities and challenges.

1. Internal environment: factors the business can influence

The internal environment includes:

• Human resources: Planning, investing in, and developing employees so the organization can succeed.
• Marketing resources: Sales staff, company and brand image, products, distribution systems, and support services. These resources strongly influence the success of marketing strategies.
• Company image: Affects fundraising, partnerships, and product launches. A poor reputation can make new products especially vulnerable to consumer opposition or boycotts.
• Management structure: Influences decision-making, performance, and communication. A cumbersome structure can obstruct communication between different levels of the organization.
• Infrastructure: Modern, reliable facilities and systems help employees work effectively. For example, slow or unreliable internet can reduce concentration and performance.
• Research and development (R&D) and technology: Because technology changes rapidly, businesses should monitor developments and invest in R&D to maintain their competitiveness.
• Finance: Supports everyday operations, including paying employees and purchasing raw materials. Effective, rational financial management is essential.

2. External environment: factors the business cannot control

External factors affect business operations but are beyond a company’s direct control. Businesses need to monitor them and adapt accordingly. The lesson discusses these factors through the microenvironment and macroenvironment.

It also refers to a model for assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The subtitles call it the “SPORT model,” which may be an automatic-caption error for SWOT. Strengths and weaknesses concern internal factors, while opportunities and threats arise from the external environment.

3. Microenvironment

The microenvironment consists of economic entities that interact more directly with the business:

• Suppliers: Provide materials, energy, labor, or capital. Unstable supply can disrupt operations and force a business to hold extra inventory, increasing costs. Relying on one supplier is risky; relationships with multiple suppliers can reduce disruptions and unnecessary stockpiling.
• Customers: Businesses need to understand customer behavior and track changes in tastes, needs, and desires.
• Competitors: Marketers should identify both current and potential competitors. Some direct competitors are obvious, while new technologies can introduce unexpected ones—for example, ride-hailing services competing with traditional taxis and motorbike taxis.
• Marketing intermediaries: Agents, brokers, and other intermediaries help businesses reach customers.

4. Macroenvironment

The lesson covers five broad macroenvironment factors:

• Demographic environment: Includes population growth and size, age structure, education, ethnicity, regional characteristics, and household composition. Demographic patterns can indicate market opportunities. The lesson uses Vietnam’s relatively young population as an example, noting potential demand for education, entertainment, tourism, and café services.
• Economic environment: Marketers should consider per-capita income, inflation and deflation, industry conditions and life cycles, purchasing power, prices, savings, and debt. Lower-income markets may have greater demand for inexpensive products. Deflation can lead consumers to delay purchases and may reduce business revenue, investment, and hiring. Recessions can also reduce revenue while increasing inventory and storage costs.
• Political and legal environment: Laws, regulations, and government policies can affect business costs and opportunities. Packaging requirements may raise production costs, while policies encouraging foreign investment may attract investment into a market.
• Socio-cultural environment: Beliefs, values, norms, attitudes, education, ethics, customs, and traditions shape consumption habits. The lesson contrasts Vietnamese practices of sharing dishes at meals with the more individual serving practices common in Western countries, emphasizing that marketers should account for cultural habits.
• Technological environment: Technological change can reshape markets and competition, sometimes creating competitors that businesses had not anticipated. Companies need to monitor these changes.

Key takeaway

Marketing decisions require understanding both a company’s internal capabilities and the external conditions around it. Businesses can adjust internal factors, but they must closely monitor external developments and adapt their strategies accordingly.

Speakers and sources

• Speaker: One unnamed instructor or lecturer presenting the lesson.
• Other sources or speakers: None identified in the subtitles.