The external environment can greatly affect your marketing efforts. Typically the external factors considered are the Threats and Opportunities. In your Learning Activity this week, you addressed the SWOT Analysis. This type of analysis considers both the internal and external factors affecting the marketing effort.

Another type of analysis examines the external environment more specifically, the PEST analysis.

Fill in the PEST table( P olitical, Economic, Social, and Technology) after doing some research for your chosen company to include some aspects of the external environment which will affect your marketing plan.

Then discuss with classmates (you do not have to share your actual completed table) the external environment factors (threats and opportunities) that will impact your company product or service the most and why.

Checklist:

• Do research on each of the PEST components.
• Fill in the table Threats and Opportunities columns.
• Discuss which threats and opportunities will affect your business the most and why.
• Address each of the 4 major PEST components in the left hand column in your response.

Can you make response each posted below #1 to 3

1. From: Debra Clendenin posted Jun 2, 2018 9:40 AM

As a small business owner, a SWOT analysis can be a very useful tool to analyze your strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats. Now let us look at a different type of analysis that will help us analyze our external environment. A PEST analysis will allow us to look at political/legal, economy, social, and technology all sectors that can and will affect a small business. My business is a transporting and shipping company located in Baton Rouge. As a company that depends on the prices of oil/gas to determined how much profit I will make or how much the services will cost my customer tariffs and trade restrictions can be a threat. As an opportunity though this year seen a tax reform policy that our country had never seen. My business structure is as a sole proprietorship meaning I will file all taxes under my name. In the economy sector of the analysis another threat to us is inflation rate of fuel. Even though the United States drills for oil we still receive a lot from Middle Eastern countries and their economies can sometimes be unstable. However, the economic growth in Baton Rouge will provide a great opportunity for my business. Socially trends can affect a business just as much as political or legal. Using vehicles that produce polluting gases can raise threats of environmentally sound groups. Properly maintaining our shipping vehicles will do our part to secure our planet. Emphasis on safety has been one of our selling points. Our clients must feel comfortable enough to trust us with their belongings and ensuring that they will have a safe trip is our completive advantage. In the transportation industry safety is top priority. Lastly, technological threat is the rate at which technology changes. Setting aside funds to keep up with the latest trend can become costly for a small business. Research and development is a great tool for any company. Consumers wants, and needs are always changing. To stay up to date you must conduct research or pay another business to do it for you.

2. From: Shane Hammontree posted May 30, 2018 2:54 PM

In this week’s discussion board, we are analyzing the components of PEST. PEST is an acronym for political, economic, social and technological, these are factors that commonly affect business activities and performance. These components are used to identify possible threats that can harm your business as well as highlight opportunity’s that will make your business succeed. Political is the first component, the threat that poses the greatest danger to my business would be safety regulations. I will have swimming and other activities that could possibly be life threatening, such as drowning or heat stroke. The next component is economics, with economic stability being my worst fear. If I raise the price of admission, the lower class citizens in the community will not be able to afford sending their children. If I underprice the admission, I may not make enough revenue to cover my expanses. The third component is social, which analyze the demographic and culture aspects of my business. What drives my customers to buy a season pass or send their children here? The last is technological or just technology, which is part of almost everyone’s business. I will have my business webpage updated almost daily with new specials and photos. There seems to be an abundance of threats for most small businesses, especially during the startup process. My major threats are making enough revenue to cover my daily expenses, having the right people for the job, and ensuring we have all our safety codes up to date. The greatest opportunity will be providing a safe place for children to go after school or during the summer. Bringing the community together and watching it grow.

Moving on to the SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The SWOT analysis is a planning process used by small business owners to identify areas where their organization is performing at a high level, as well as areas that need work. In this discussion post, we are looking at opportunities and threats. Opportunities and threats are categorized as external, which means you or your company normally do not control.

3. From: Daniel Novit posted Jun 2, 2018 8:29 PM

Greetings professor and classmates,

In the marketing businesses, there any many external factors that may have an influence on the business. Based on my "PEST" analysis, I have determined that there are a few different categories that may impact my business the most.

The first is are would be Political. In some way, shape or form, politics will always play some role in either threatening, or opportunistic to the marketing industry. Politicians help to make the laws that businesses must operate under. For the marketing industry, we recently saw Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioned by the court system because of an information breach. This can cause harm to social media marketing platforms, such as Facebook, which have become critical in the digital marketing industry.

The next area which may impact my business would be in the social category. Marketing initiatives are highly dependent on social trends and may be altered by the way people in society behave. For example, a marketing business may find tremendous success in generating leads for clients in the recreational marijuana industry if 25% more of the population began smoking marijuana. If the demand for marijuana increases, growers have more opportunity to thrive and grow as a business, which will subsequently increase the need for marketing professionals to assist them.

The greatest way that my marketing business could be impacted would be through changes in technology. Changes in technology will more than likely create more opportunities for my business to grow. Consider how marketing worked 50 years ago; there was no social media, internet, or modern communication devices. The development of these forms of technology open pathways for new marketing tactics and the ability to reach and target consumers more effectively. Technology is always changing in order to simplify our lives, so I would be optimistic that improvements in technology would make my business run more efficiently and cost effectively.