Business A-level Paper 1
1.1. Meeting customer needs
1.1.1 The market
Introduction - Marketing is the range of activities that businesses undertake to try
to and create a demand among consumers for their products or
marketing services
- The department that targets the right product at the right market
using the right combination of the 4 Ps
- Market research is essential to understand consumer behaviours,
allowing businesses to entice customers
- Encourage customer loyalty
- Respond quickly to change
Competitive - Brand name
advantage - Logo
through - Unique product features (USPs)
marketing - Unusual packaging
- Promotion
- Good product design
- Widest distribution
Introduction - In the long-term, HR is the most important
to people - HR departments take charge of recruitment, selection, training etc
Competitive - Higher skill levels
advantage - Better quality of output
through - More motivated staff
people - Better customer service skills
- More innovative staff
- More flexible staff
The market - Where buyers and sellers meet in order to exchange goods or
services
Mass - Aims to satisfy the needs of a whole market
markets - Generic products, similar in form and function
- Huge markets – firms can operate successfully, even if their market
share is low
- Huge brands can develop a brand/logo to differentiate
- Huge potential number of customers, long lasting wide appeal
- Higher production levels allow economies of scale, reducing
production costs
- Use of mass media advertising
- Lower risk than niche as there is less dependence on a small group
of consumers
- Quality may suffer
- Customer churn means low brand loyalty
- Product might not appeal to everyone
Niche - A small segment of a larger market
markets - Specialist products and services
- Changes in consumer preferences can be devastating to the
market
- Smaller markets mean successful firms may achieve far higher
market shares
- Differentiation is likely to be achieved through product features and
functions
- Distinctiveness allows a price premium to be charged
- Higher profit margins
- Easier to enter for firms with limited financial resources
- High chance of brand loyalty
- Lack economies of scale
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- Likely to attract competition if successful
- Vulnerable to market changes
Market size - Indicates a firm’s potential sales
- To achieve market growth, encourage growth in the whole market
- Measured in volume (units) and value (sales)
- Market growth is a key indicator for existing and potential entrants
Market - Sales of one firm/total market sales x 100 = Market Share
share
Brands - Brands with personality can be recognised and remembered
- Effective branding is essential to successful niches
- Heart of achieving product differentiation
Dynamic - All markets are dynamic meaning businesses have to adapt and
markets develop new ideas, products and services to keep up with new
technology and change
Online retailing
- Vital to ensure your product or service is available to buy wherever
consumers want to buy it
How markets change
- PESTLE highlights the major sources of external changes faced by
businesses: political, economic, social, technological, legal and
environmental
Innovation and market growth
- When competing firms develop new products and services that
offer unique features, loyalties can change dramatically
- Businesses must constantly keep pace with rivals
Adapting to change
- Market research and an understanding of general trends in the
market is vital to adapting to change
- E.g. removing sugar from food products
- Always show an appreciation of the impact on all four business
functions: marketing, people, finance and operations
- Required changes may include production methods, finding new
suppliers, redeploying workers and adopting new advertising and
distribution methods
How - Competition stimulates change and development, preventing firms
competition from getting complacent and forces them to become innovative
affects the
market Increased competition pressures businesses to
- Drive down costs
- Maintain competitive prices
- Develop innovative products and services
- Maintain high quality
Difference - Risk is quantifiable and predictable
between risk - Uncertainty is unquantifiable and unpredictable
and
uncertainty
1.1.2 Market research
Market - Gathers information about consumers, competitors and distributors
research - Identifies customers buying habits and attitudes to products and
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services
- Used to identify and anticipate customer wants and needs, quantify
likely demand and gain an insight into consumer behaviour
Product - An approach to decision making that considers internal factors
orientation before changes in the market
- Focus on own key strengths, leading to revolutionary ideas
- However, if the business fails to adapt its products to customer
needs, there could be issues
Market - Consumers’ views and behaviours are at the heart of the decision-
orientation making process
- More likely to lead to marketing success
Primary - New research conducted for a particular purpose
research - E.g. surveys, retailer research, observation, group/individual
discussions
- Addresses the specific issues the business is interested in
- Up-to-date
- Can help understand customer psychology
- Expensive
- Risk of interview and questionnaire bias
- May need to compare with other information to understand the
meaning of findings
Secondary - Uses pre-existing data that has been gathered for another purpose
research - E.g. the internet, trade press, government statistics, past internal
sales figures
- Often free
- Provides a good market overview
- Usually based on a larger scale, reliably produced research
- Information may be out of date
- Not tailored to suit the businesses specific needs
- Can be expensive to buy published research reports on markets
Quantitative - Research conducted on a large enough scale to provide statistically
research reliable data, usually aimed at discovering factual information
about how customers behave
- Increased sample size
- Less risk of bias
- Numerical data gives insights to relevant trends
- Easier to interpret/compare
- Focuses purely on data rather than why things happen
- May lack reliability if sample size or method is valid
Qualitative - Aimed at providing detailed insights as to why customers behave
research the way they do
- Provides depth and detail
- Focuses on understanding customer wants, needs and expectations
which are very useful insights for businesses
- Highlights issues
- Effective way of testing the marketing mix
- Expensive
- Subjective – risk of data being non-representative
Limitations - Sample size may be too small meaning there is more chance of
of market respondents being over or under representative of the overall
research views of the market
- Sample bias – respondents selected may skew the overall findings
of the total population being researched
Use of ICT to - Company websites gather data on visitors to the website which
