A marketing environment can be anything and everything an organisation must take into consideration when it is presented with a need of developing and selling any product in the market. These maybe internal environments or external. As for the marketing professionals, one must be able to acknowledge these environments and have a clear understanding of each of them in order to ensure there is a successful movement of the goods from the time of production to the time these goods reach the customers so as to generate profits as well as good will and thus customer preference and brand building. The external environment comprises of forces that cannot be in control of the organisation or the company. Elliott, G et al. (2008, p.11) say that these are forces that have an impact on the business and if understood and taken into consideration the impact can be positive. The uncontrollable forces in the external environment are:.
Competition.
Government policies.
Natural forces.
Social and cultural forces.
Demographic factors.
Technological changes.
1. Competition – Kotler, P et al. (2011, p.60) state that any business not only needs to be aware of their consumer needs but also the competitor capability. This is to ensure that their product is positioned better for the consumer. All the companies must be able to identify their size and industry and thus define the competition and study the same from time to time so as to be on the edge of the competition. Once a marketing professional is able to monitor the competition in the market they will be equipped to assess their own marketing efforts. Competition not only provides a benchmark for a business to compare itself to but also a threshold from where the business must take itself further. Thus it is extremely important to know and study the competitive vicinity for any business to flourish. Elliott, G et al. (2008, p. 59) sum it up as, it is not enough to just study the available information about the competitors but a constant check must be kept on the competitors.