ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3, marketing was described as being concerned with satisfying customer needs, trying to do so more effectively than the competition, and making appropriate use of the organization’s own resources and capabilities in this process. Accordingly, one of the first stages in any marketing process is to understand the environment in which an organization operates. Indeed, the concept of being ‘market orientated’, originally championed by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and Narver and Slater (1990), has at its heart the ideas of gathering, sharing and responding to information relating to both customers and competitors. Like many other organizations, providers of financial services operate in a rapidly changing environment. Globalization and developments in information and communications technology (ICT) combined with changes in customer needs and government policies create increasing degrees of complexity and uncertainty. Marketing forces organizations to look outside and to develop an awareness and understanding of the environment in which they operate. An organization that understands and responds to its operating environment
By the end of this chapter you will be able to: ● understand the key elements of the marketing environment and evaluate
their impact on financial services providers ● analyse key elements in the macro, market and internal environments ● understand the process of SWOT analysis and its role in making sense of
information about the marketing environment.
