Marketing Assignment Examining Business Environment Of Muller Milk & Ingredients
Question
Task:
Write a 3000 word marketing assignment of an organisation together with your recommendations on improving their digital marketing.
Answer
Executive Summary
A marketing environment of a business comprises of an external and internal environment where the internal environment is known to be specific to the organisation and also involves owners; employees and machines. On the other hand, the external environment is eventually divided within both micro and macro factors. The business operates within a dynamic environment which consists of a direct influence for the way organisations can operate and whether they can achieve the objectives properly. The external environment is known to be composed of different forces and organisations that can group within the key sub-environments. The business managers and owners consist of a greater dealing as per the control over the internal business environment that can cover the day to day decisions. They tend to use their resources and skills for creating services and goods which can satisfy the prospective and existing customers. There is a sign of business environment as it brings together the opportunities and threats for a business. However, gaining knowledge about the environment helps the management for decision making and future planning. For instance, competition is known to increase with the entry for new organisations within the market. The management needs to draft some of the new policies and plans for dealing with some of the new competitors. This enables the identification based on opportunities along with getting the advantage of the first mover; this can also consider identification for threats along with the signals of early warning as well as tapping the useful resources.
The present study is based on the business environment. It has focused on the company's current products and service along with highlighting the marketing mix strategy of Muller Milk & Ingredients Company. On the other hand, it has also focused on marketing factors and different theories about business marketing as well as digital marketing recommendations.
Introduction
Business Environment is the assemblage of all kinds of external and internal factors like employee’s supervision, consumer needs, prospect, supervision, command and supply, provider, diverse activities of administration, clients, innovation and technology, financial trends, communal trends, marketplace trends and similar others. The business environmental analysis is mainly described as the process which is associated with all the fundamental mechanisms such as exterior and interior and that also manage the power on management presentation of the corporation. The internal apparatus indicates the fundamental weakness and strengths of the business body whereas the external components represent the viewpoint and exterior threats of the company. To accomplish the business environmental examination, a balanced stream of appropriate knowledge is essential to find out the supreme course of achievement. The business environment management mainly operates the knowledge that is composed of the analysis to calculate trends for the coming period in progress. The appropriate information can be developed to determine the functioning of the business environment and also build up the major organizational goals (Vanany et al., 2019, p.98).
When companies are found to develop any marketing strategies, they tend to make decisions regarding the direction of the organisation and the efforts of marketing. The organisations can focus within the product; customer along with the production. As it has been evidenced that the business environment has been changed, the companies have been trying to focus within their efforts of marketing as per the specific approach. These organisations start with the needs of the customers and create value. The respective study focuses on the background of the company along with the current service and products that are offered to the customer. It also highlights the trends and factors in the marketing environment while discussing the marketing mix and marketing management related theory along with providing a proper recommendation.
Background of the organisation
The selected company is Muller Milk & Ingredients based in the U.K. The Müller Milk & Ingredients organisation was established by Robert Wiseman Dairies and later Müller Wiseman Dairies and is the main milk provider and machine in Great Britain. This company spread the business in the UK and Ireland. This company is owned by a German Müller family and has almost eleven major dairies including East, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Manchester, Foston Bridgwater Hanworth and Drayton market. The company mainly produces cream, Frijj milkshake and recently they are known to produce the spreadable butter. This company started its journey in 1987 and still tries to make the business better. The Muller Milk & Ingredients also delivers milk and milk products almost to 715,000 households through the Milk & More doorstep home delivery services. Next is the complete management of the sale practice on products, the business was renamed. This company also provides almost 30% of Britain's clean milk and has become Britain's main fresh milk circulation network. The Müller Milk & Ingredients company also provides numerous great grocery retailers (Muller Milk. com,2020).
Identify current product or service offering and the current segment of customers
As stated by Warrink (2018, p.11), for the marketing of any dairy product, the customer segment and service and product distribution are the most vital part of a business. The very important portion of business strategy is formative for the product, service and the audience. Through ascertaining this, consideration can assist to glow out the main feature of dairy commerce to emphasize to the most efficient position to advertise to incarcerate the target audience. Accepting the main dairy production and products methodically assist to discern the advertising weakness and assets. By enchanting an in-strength look at the process and dairy products that set off into manufacturing them, the product's compensation becomes apparent. The main concern of the company is related to the manufactured goods that are produced, whether the company produce butter, milk, cheese or kinds of other dairy product and distribution services. If the cows that used are feed just natural products and hormone-free, the company can include this strategy to increase the customer rate. If the operators and owners are third-generation of the dairy farmers or an expansion of an industry with profound roots and all-embracing experience, the company can highlight this in the advertising. This can be considerate of the service and product that the production and the procedure help to form the overall marketing planning (Anon, 2019, p.2).
The company has been advertising to the main section of the marketplace that is most leaning to obtain the dairy commodities. If the dairy products and business service are formed by the hormone-free natural cows that are complimentary to browse, this makes available the healthy lifestyles. The company is required to determine these facts to reverberate with and may be prepared to recompense a little additional for these descriptions. Families in the upper to the middle-income category are possible to be the best clientele for this dairy business. Those concerned in what exactly goes into drinks and foods along with their children intake; are agreeable and competent to compensate a modest additional for chemical and natural free commodities are probably a good quality fit (Muller Milk. com,2020).
The Plan of the Muller Milk & Ingredients company for product and service to increase the customer
Muller Milk & Ingredients company create some new products. This company produce fresh milk products which embrace the country’s initial semi type skimmed milk, the Fresh’n’Lo, Puriti which include extended shelf life and the One which is based on 1% fat milk. Most documented brand of this company is Black and White milk and also other six regional diary labels currently are present in the portfolio such as Milk from the Scotland, Grampian, West Country, Milk from Wales and Cornish and presently they add milk from Northern Dairy. The Milk is not just one food product in the company's portfolio. This company procedure and deals out the double, single, whipping and clotted cream goods along with the spreadable butter (Muller Milk. com,2020).
In 2015, the Muller Milk & Ingredients produced the Frijj Milkshakes. This company have the United Kingdom’s biggest butter plant sector in Market Drayton place. Almost £17 million plant process was formally released on 2013 by senior partner Theo Müller and Owen Paterson the MP for the North Shropshire and also Secretary of the State for Environment management from Food practices and Rural Affairs. This plant is competent of producing almost 45,000 tonnes of the salted, lactic and unsalted butter that ended with the cream from main British dairy farms. It performs different business operations at the largest fresh dairy products and this organisation-maintained equipment of the fresh milk type to the customers by rising construction at different sites and co-operation maintained with dairy suppliers. In 2015, the company started the online service in ordering a part for its doorstep service and the customers have known this service as the Milk & More, this service is formerly controlled by Dairy Crest (Muller Milk. com,2020).
Figure 1: The products of Muller Milk & Ingredients
Source: (Muller Milk. com,2020)
Identify the factors and trends in the marketing environment and the effect on their marketing approach
As stated by B.D.J (2020, p.957), the marketing environment of any organisation mainly consists of exterior services and factors can have an adverse type of effect on an organisation's marketing management practices. The dairy company can keep up and construct successful associations with target customers. Consequently, the features of marketing management and pronunciation are predisposed by many factors. A concise discussion about factors is stated below:
Customers
The influential marketing plan plays an essential position and assists to draw more and more clientele in line. This is necessary for corporations to centre on the difficulty of restricted customers to accomplish success. Consequently, Muller Milk & Ingredient determined to generate low priced based goods to contend with the neighbouring market. Their marketing policy helped and worked to draw more probable customers. The customers have the authority to construct an organisation achievement. Thus, this dairy company accomplishes its goals and objectives vice versa.
Competition
As revealed above, the service and products of Muller Milk & Ingredients are comparable to some of the competitors. This company keeps to continue competition with its competitor and achieved reasonable sales enlargement in 2006. This company also pursue some approach to obtain a circumference over their contestant and thus draw most of the audiences (Babazadeh et al., 2018, p. 385).
Suppliers’ management
Businesses can accomplish achievement also depending on their management of suppliers. Confidential label goods are an accumulation marketplace retail provider. This company increased its manufacture in the low-priced and complicated confidential label of goods with the assistance of great retailers. Furthermore, Muller Milk & Ingredients also distributes its products through its organisation-owned sales power, autonomous distributors, negotiator, self-sufficient grocers and foodservice points. Besides, particular distributors provide the company's valued clientele.
Demographic factor
The demographic factor has contact on different marketing fragments that embrace ethnicity, educational level, lifestyle, cultural norms, values and region and. Thus, even following the tremendous altering demographics, this company continues to obtain and benefit from the anti-agers, skin milk products or even firming cream and butter products develop into gradually more popular (Asih, 2020, p.1515). The target customers of the specific organisation have been the upper-middle and urban middle-class people as it sources milk through 1600 farmers within Britain to develop and market the products.
Economic factors
There are different types of parameters that are accountable to diminish the exchange of the commodities which are also being formed by the Muller Milk & Ingredients. The financial environment can also be radical for association growth. This problem was originally faced by the company. Conversely, the Muller Milk & Ingredients supervise to defeat the situation.
Technological factors
This Technological factor is also measured by Muller Milk & Ingredients. This is because technological factors assist to enlarge the knowledge and skills compulsory for the service and products manufacture. The resources and technology are also utilized for the level operation of the business (Ferm and Raco, 2020, p.218).
Figure 2: The factors of Marketing Management
(Source: First et al., 2020, p.1)
The key concepts of the marketing mix are applied at present
As stated by Cvjetkovi? Milena et al., (2020, p.45), the marketing mix is convenient in the promotion planning procedure to reach the Muller Milk & Ingredients company's organisational goals and objectives. The milk operates the association and also manages a variety of altered innovative techniques for the principle of marketing mix between the Milk production and concept of the organization. Essentially, this is maintained over the open market services, demographics and dairy products of this organisation, organisation size and marketplace size. The fundamental advertising amalgamation is the functioning which mainly facilitates the marketers to understand the product and service. The common applications of marketing mix connect with 4 P's approach of marketing purpose that ultimately connects with the product, price, place and promotion. This trade strategy was later on ended to the 7 Ps of business marketing function with the product, price, place, promotion, people, procedure and physical confirmation (Grewal et al., 2020, p.985).
Marketing Mix |
Muller Milk & Ingredients |
Product |
This organisation mainly sells an enormous range of different milk and dairy products with various customers. This way it helps the consumers to draw and also accomplish the goal of the audience. This corporation supplies diverse types of dairy products like butter, milk, cream, low-fat milk and others. This organisation provides concern on the extended term of projects. Currently, it has also started online marketing and provides the milk at doorsteps. |
Price |
The organisation Muller Milk & Ingredients mainly follow the fundamental cost leadership business trends strategy in specified that the dairy drinks on a huge scale. It also assists in resistance to the former competitive open market. The dissimilar dairy products are complete in transformed proportions that have a contradictory charge as well (Halvorsen, 2019, p.398). |
Place |
The organisation needs to apprehend the antagonistic enlargement of production planning. The organisation also goals to generate the occurrence in the market with its occurrence in all place in U.K. |
Promotion |
For promotion concept, this organisation principally applies to newspaper, television, glossy magazines and pamphlets for promotion of services and delivery. This is essentially cooperative to operate the social media platform for promotion and attract the consumers predominantly in the family-based customers who are living in U.K. The company uses a different method for trade-related encouragement like to acquire one and gain the one free offer for the customers (Lord and O'Brien, 2017, p.217). |
Physical Evidence |
Its part refers to essential fundamentals that are utilized for the company for information about the business environment and consumer's knowledge. The company needs to provide a purpose that can formulate a consciousness on the customers and the workers (Martinez Sala, 2018, p.1). |
People |
The major function of the establishment must provide enlargement and training related programs to the employees in command to contribute exceptional forces supervision and represent more customers towards the products and services. |
Packaging |
The developments offer a place of presentation that is used to achieve something. It helps in dealing out the products and services to the consumers (Mazurek-?opaci?ska and Soboci?ska, 2018, p.85). |
Use theory to reflect on their current activities, including an appreciation of any sustainable approaches within their market practice
As stated by Meghisan and Burger-Helmchen (2017, p.7), diverse theories are crucial for the marketing managing and the particular establishment has functional some for progress in commerce and augmented the marketing. In common, the essential marketing approach promotes diverse merchandise that is originally connected with production, place, price and promotion along with the marketing plan, sales managing, partnership, policy and public anxiety. There are several applicable theories also used by Muller Milk & Ingredients and the management theories are Transaction Cost Theory, Institutional theory, Resource View, Eclectic Paradigm, Resource view and Internationalisation Model.
Transaction Cost Theory- This represents the viewpoint of prime and connected with the scheme management and entrance choice mode. This Transaction Cost theory is indomitable by several transactional measurements such as environmental insecurity, benefit specificity, transaction occurrence and behavioural improbability. Within the respective organisation, the scrutiny of the deal symbolizes the basic cost of business supplementary than the cost of the production. The establishment can presume the prospect to connect and calculatingly classify behaviours which are correlated with identity interest. This association creates a marketplace entry approach which also includes lying, stealing and contravene agreements (Khojaeva, 2020, p.23).
Institutional theory- This theory investigates the basic entry procedure in market and functioning plan manufacture. The Institutional theory is symbolized in the admiration of values, norms, institutional context and rules. The conception of the institutional theory is correlated with the isomorphism which explains the development of expecting and constraining the one element force of the population. The company applies this to narrate the diverse environmental circumstances which are ultimately associated with competitiveness and marketing in the dairy business market.
Eclectic Paradigm- The Eclectic Paradigm represents the supervision of marketing-related emergencies and also supports the transactional related cost analysis in business. The benefit of possession symbolizes the cost, controls and relationships of internal firms. Dissimilar firms and indescribable assist in inventive capacity and products. This advantage mainly refers to marketing knowledge and the dimension of the marketplace. Most importantly, the organisation also gets some compensation like a unique and sustainable resource of construction of compensation in a competitive marketplace and centre on marketing urgent situation management (Langan et al., 2019, p.35).
Resource analysis-based theory- The Resource analysis-based theory represents the company as an outstanding enclose of build-up insubstantial and concrete stocks of supply which contain the procedure, assets, development, ability and knowledge. The Resource analysis-based theory has been building the region of the exclusive ground and also strategic management. This resource analysis-based theory represents the individual organisation and focuses on rate, firm consideration, diverse attribute production. The basic sustainable benefit in a reasonable mode and organisational presentation requirement for the regional, international market (Vaid et al., 2020, p.221).
Internationalisation Model- This Internationalisation model mainly influenced in the high method and this theory established by Penrose. The Internationalisation Model theory mainly focuses on the change and information of the organisation and industry's behavioural perception. This model works with the different learning system and dissimilar activities of the organisations. This implements several international operational augmentations and overseas participation in the marketplace. The function of this model helps the company to believe the psychic manner like diverse business language, practices and education. This model helps to build up the international process and to pressure the pronouncement making method on the international perspective (Paesbrugghe et al., 2017, p.171).
Recommendation on the improvement of their digital marketing utilisation
As stated by Rezvani and Fathollahzadeh (2018, p.136), to create a flourishing business marketing plan the support of digital marketing is very significant for Muller Milk & Ingredients organisation. The marketing strategy is based on regional demands and traditional culture. Through digital marketing, the company can improve the regional and international marketplace and the thought to amplify marketing planning. The digital marketing helps to communicate with the regional individuals to search out the requirements about the different dairy products. The Muller Milk & Ingredients follows the new norms, different payment types, new laws and commerce practices which provide the change with the section along with a new digital process for purchaser increments. Another significant strategy is the digital marketing planning where just the different international, national and local managers provide advice about the digital matter, the customer also demands the high-cost dairy products or the low cost. Digital marketing always improves Muller Milk & Ingredients to increase the customer. The recommendation also increases the marketing utilisation (Sanader et al., 2017, p.1).
In the current circumstances, the main digital marketing strategy and altered strategies are remarkably cost proficient for any industry and the company can use this strategy to increase the dairy business. The traditional digital marketing strategy includes the radio, billboards, newspaper and similar others but in the present situation, this Muller Milk & Ingredients company can follow the fresh trends like diverse online social media-based platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Emails and others which is extremely successful. With this plan, the national and local business of this organisation processes the diverse special effects which are extremely functional. With the assistance of the digital marketing process, the organisation secured the industry all over the dairy business market which was established to be a cooperative advance for companies like Muller Milk & Ingredients. The main digital marketing procedure targets openly to the consumer and gives the confidence to make new services and the products (Timchenko and Andryushchenko, 2019, p.35).
Conclusion
This present study has presented the business environment and the other factors related to the business environment. This has provided a brief knowledge about the Muller Milk & Ingredients and its background along with the products and services and the current segment of customer. It has identified the factors and the approach of the marketing environment. on the other hand, it has also emphasized on the key concepts of marketing mix applied presently. Hence. It has highlighted different theories and current activities as well as the recommendation on digital marketing to increase the customer.
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Appendices
Swot analysis
Strengths |
Weaknesses |
Opportunities |
Threats |
The higher level of customer satisfaction |
The compatibility of the organisational structure has been with the present model of business |
Lower rate of inflation which can bring stability within the market. |
An intense competition |
Highly successful for going to the market strategies for the products. |
There have been gaps within the range of products |
Obtaining new customers through online channels |
Shortages of the skilled workforce |
It consists of a strong base of reliable suppliers. |
More investments are required for new technological advancements |
Opening the new markets due to the agreement of the government |
There is no regular supply for any innovative products |
Table 1: Swot analysis
Source: (Developed by the Learner)
Pestle analysis
Political factors |
The government regulations and policies based on the products of agriculture can affect the decisions of the organisation to extract milk and have livestock. The company can also be affected through the importation of laws along with the foreign regulations of the government. |
Economic factors |
The obvious factors that affect the organisation might be the power of purchasing within the economy as a whole. Increasing within the power of purchasing might lead to an increase in the sales of milk. |
Social factors |
A move for a vegan lifestyle can negatively affect the sales within the dairy products. However, attitudes towards obesity can also result in affecting the sales of milk along with dairy products. |
Technological factors |
Due to technological advancement, the manufacturers of the organisation can market different dairy products with different variants. |
Legal factors |
The organisations like the FDA and the counterparts within different countries are known to regulate the food items in different countries. Hence, the respective organisation follows the laws that are regulated in different countries. |
Environmental factors |
The organisation is mostly dependent on the availability and health of livestock. Different diseases affecting the livestock can reduce the quality of supply and milk that can be adversely affected when the livestock is known to be killed off. |
Table 2: Pestle analysis
Source: (Developed by the Learner)