Individual Report on Situational Analysis and Market Segmentation

Question

You will be required to do the following to retrieve this assessment:

1. If you have previously submitted and failed, the individual report then ensure that you have fully understood the comments given in your feedback sheet and have a clear understanding of the areas that you have to make improvements on.

2. If you have not previously attempted this individual report, then ensure you cover the following:

• Your research should cover the UK market only.

• Your research should cover the last 5 years.

• Your report should utilise a range of relevant academic and data sources and underpin points made. In either cases, your research should specifically address the following two tasks:

1. Carry out a Situational Analysis of the UK market for the above stated business. This should include researching the business’ customers, products & markets and conducting SWOT, PEST & competitive analyses.

2. Based on your research, segment the market for the above stated business using appropriate segmentation variables. Identify one new segment that you think would be the most profitable for this business to target. Suggest possible positioning strategies for the new segment.

Individual Report Structure

You are strongly advised to follow the report structure below: You should use Arial 12-point and double line spacing Front Page

This should contain the following: module code & title, the name of your company, your student number and the word count of each part of the report.

This should be the Table of Contents page

Third Page: Executive Summary

Executive Summary (200 words maximum but will not be part of the word count). This is normally written after all sections of the report have been completed and includes the essential details of the report, such as:

? Highlight of main points

? Major findings

? Main conclusion points

This will be about paragraph to act as a brief introduction of your chosen company and the business it is in. Any further detailed information on the company should be placed in an appendix.

Situational Analysis (new page)

(This is based on session slides of weeks 2 & 3, student activities and the corresponding chapters of the recommended for reading marketing texts and journal articles).

Hint: Use of published research reports such as Mintel and Marketline Advantage reports, government sources, national newspapers, BBC business website, etc. for data and information on your company. For example, if the main area of your company’s business is catering then search for information on the size of the market, product types, customers, competitors, etc. The company’s website should offer information on the product range, which can be viewed as current market segments targeted by the company. In answering this section you are strongly advised to follow this structure:

(1) Market analysis: Provide some relevant information on the market in which the company operates within such as market trends, product range, consumers/customers types, etc.

(2) TOWS / SWOT: Collected information on SWOT factors should be appended and used to identify the main points for the development of a TOWS matrix and place this in the main report.

(3) PEST analysis: Collected information on PEST elements should be appended and used to identify the most relevant points for the company's PEST