You are Required to Choose the Industry in Which your Chosen Firm: Marketing Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

The assessment requires you to write a 2000 word industry analysis. You are required to choose the industry in which your chosen firm (assessment 2) operates.

This assessment will help to inform your second assessment and enable you to determine your objectives and to formulate your marketing plan.

Executive Summary

• Communicate critical elements of your Industry Analysis
• Should read as stand-alone piece
• May be the only part some Execs read!
• What do you need them to know?

Introduction

• Brief and to the point
• Include the definition of your chosen industry
• Introduce and frame the industry and what you will be analyzing
• Remember your unit of analysis is the industry, not the firm
• Do not use irrelevant information, it needs to be succinct and relevant and well-formulated

Competitor Analysis

• Scope of the industry competition
• Number of players and relative size
• Are they direct competitors or partial?
• Are the products of those competing in your industry highly differentiated or close in similarity?
• How do you stand out?
• How are competitors positioned?
• Competitor strategy pursuit

Dominant Economic Features

• Market size (consider geographic breakdown)
• Growth rate of industry and stage within the industry life-cycle. In growth phase?
• Relative importance of economies of scale in purchasing, advertising & distribution
• Industry segments (if any) and effects on firms, strategies, competition & profitability

External Environment

• PESTEL analysis
• Porter’s Forces relative strengths
• Likelihood of competitive forces strengthening/weakening
• Do forces differ across segments? Why? Implications?
• Overall, how attractive is you chosen industry for entry
• Consumer trends and buyer behavior, what do you see?

Key Success Factors

• 3 -4 key industry issues/factors strongly influencing success and profitability (how are you going to get a piece of this?)
• Are such factors varied across sectors, i.e. are there some issues affecting one segment but not another?
• Are KSF’s consistent, are they likely to change over the lifetime of the industry? What we are facing today, will this be the same down the line?
How do we capitalize on these success factors?