MARKET DEFINITION
It is critically important to fully understand what market you compete in. An overly narrow view of the market can blind a company to potential competitive threats, such as when railroads thought of themselves as “railroads” rather than as “transportation companies.” The purpose of this analysis is to create a picture of the market structure for your products or services, identifying the generic class, the product type, the product sub-type, and ultimately the brands that compete in each of these product sub-types. This will help you to identify the most important existing and potential competitors that you will be discussing in more detail later.
MACRO-ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
The next task of this analysis is to describe the macro-environmental forces that affect demand for your market offering. These forces include the following: economic, demographic, social, technological, governmental, and natural forces. Describe the favoring and opposing macro forces impacting (currently and in the future) demand for your market offering and also clearly indicate any of these forces that have little to no impact on demand. Identifying the favoring and opposing macro forces is often referred to as identifying the opportunities and threats that exist in the macro-environment.
The final portion of this assignment then is to identify the three macro-environmental forces that are most significant in terms of impacting demand for your product offering. Conduct a thorough analysis of the implications of these three key forces on the future demand for your market offering. This analysis is to be conducted at the general, macro level. You are analyzing the environment in which your organization operates, not your organization specifically. Conclude this analysis with a forecast of projected demand for your product offering over the next 3-5 years.
Deliverable Structure
• Format: Word document (be sure to include page numbers)
Times New Roman font, 12 point
1-inch margins
• Length: 1-page executive summary – single-spaced
8-10 page report – double-spaced
Appendices
Bibliography
• Inclusions: The body of your report should be 8-10 pages and should include:
A very brief summary of your organization and the products/services you offer. One to two paragraphs are sufficient.
Discussion of your market definition that includes a graphical representation of your market definition.
A thorough macro-environmental analysis
In addition to the body of your report, you should include:
An executive summary to your project advisor that will act as the cover for your report. This memo should be written in business language, explaining to your project advisor what they will read in your document. It should not be simply an introduction to your report, but rather should very concisely summarize the key learnings from the analyses conducted.
A bibliography listing the references used for documenting facts in your report. Use a bibliographic format of your choice. Just be consistent in your citations.
Appendices that will include pertinent graphs and charts.
