Types of Marketing Environment – Micro Environment

Marketing Environment is a wide scope which covers all the outside factors, forces which affects marketing management’s decisions and their relationship with target customers. Companies must constantly adopt and change to the changing environment.

Marketing Environment is a study of all the external atmosphere of the organization affecting all the internal factors within the organization which ultimately requires attention of the Marketing management for sound decision making in the long run as well as short period.

Marketing environment encompasses the marketing team within an organization and includes all of the outside factors of marketing that affect the team’s ability to develop and maintain successful customer relationships with their targeted customer group.

Micro Environment

Philip Kotler explains this environment in his definition as, “The micro environment includes all the actors close to the company that affect, positively or negatively, its ability to create value for and relationship with its customers”

Thus, Customer satisfaction and communication should be developed for healthy relationship.

Marketing managers cannot make this relationship working because of several factors affecting at the same time.

The factors are as follows:

(i) The Company

The company is a hierarchical entity consists of different departments like purchasing, production, top management, research and development, finance etc. All these interrelated groups forms the internal environment of organization.

Top management is responsible for companies’ mission, objectives, and broad strategies, policies. Marketing management make decisions within the actions and decisions of top management. Other departments also have impact on marketing department. Harmony must be established with all the departments.

(ii) Suppliers

Suppliers are important part of the overall link of customer to company. Suppliers supplies goods and resources needed to produce goods and services to the company.

Their problems must be studied because they can seriously affect marketing. Cost and supply availability must be checked by marketing department.

In current scenario marketers treat suppliers as their partners in creating and delivering customer value.

Many suppliers provides valuable information on their web portals about their marketers and give important feed back to them about customer responses.

Supply shortages, delays, labor strikes and other events can cost sales in the short run and affect customer satisfaction in the long run.

(iii) Marketing Intermediaries

Intermediaries helps the company to promote, sell and distribute its products to final buyers. Marketing intermediaries includes resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing services agencies and other intermediaries including financial intermediaries.

Reseller includes distribution channel firms that help the company to find customers or make sales to them.

In India it is a growing trend that in near future manufacturers will now be facing competition of large and powerful intermediaries. Some resale organizations in India have emerged and troubled the manufacturers. For example Big Bazaar, Shoppers Stop. Pantaloons retail. Like suppliers, intermediaries form an important component of the company’s overall marketing strategic management.

For optimizing customer satisfaction company must become partner with these intermediaries to balance the performance of whole system.

(iv) Competitors

Marketing Management must takes into account the activities of its competitors because of their similar aim of satisfying customer. Marketers must take strategic advantage by performing more efficiency in this modern age of cut throat competition.

Every organization must study its own nature and structure and implement marketing strategy accordingly. All policies are not suitable for every organization so choice must be made and policies must be planned accordingly.

(v) Public

Public is any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on organization’s ability to achieve its objectives.

Noted marketing author and thinker Philip Kotler identifies seven types of public which attracted and which affects organization’s decisions which are:

• Financial Public: Banks, Investment Agencies, Stockholders, Debenture holders etc. are included in this type.
• Media public: Newspaper, Magazine, reporters, editors etc.
• Government Public: Lawyers, Tax consultant, Government Personnel etc.
• Citizen- Action public: minority groups, social groups, RTI activists, other social activists etc.
• Local public: Neighborhood residents, community organization etc.
• General Public: General public in the country
• Internal Public: Leaders, Board of Directors, Volunteers, Managers etc.

Each class of public have different agenda and needs to be treated differently.