Coach Inc. Environmental Analysis Case Study Sample

Introduction

Practical application of marketing has shown that the use of only the individual components, such as the study of the product or market forecasting, does not give the desired effect. Only a holistic approach allows effectively break into the market with goods and services (especially with new products and services of the original). The results of marketing are highly influenced by internal and external environment of the company. One of the key concepts of marketing is the concept of environmental marketing. Marketing environment is a set of “uncontrollable” forces, against which the company must develop its marketing mix. Being changeable, impose restrictions and full of uncertainty, marketing environment profoundly affects the live of the company. Occurring in this environment changes are neither slow nor predictable. It is able to present a major surprise and heavy blows. Marketing environment is composed of micro-and macro factors. Microenvironment (internal environment) is presented by forces directly related to the company and its ability to service customers, i.e., suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors and contact audiences. Macroenvironment (external environment) is represented by the wider social factors, which affect the microenvironment, such as factors of demographic, economic, natural, technological, political and cultural nature. Changes occurring in the external environment affect the performance indicators of the organization. All macro factors are not controlled, but despite this, the company is trying to adapt to the them. The effects of these changes are subject to the objectives, strategies and mission of the organization itself. Therefore, the actual task of the management is to ensure the adequacy of the organization’s strategy to its environment. Management should have a clear idea what the strategic situation in the organization at the moment is.
Effectiveness of the organization suggests that the manager has the skills to work in an uncertain external environment, the absence of sufficient information to accurately predict the dynamics of customer needs and changes in external factors. When the speed of change increases, the organization is faced with a fairly high level of uncertainty. As a result, organizations must quickly adapt to rapid change, but it takes a lot of effort, time and cost.
Therefore, Coach Inc. was chosen for the completion of the assignment, because it is famous American trademark that concentrates in the manufacture of great distinction leather goods: shoes, purses, and accouterments. Notwithstanding the fact that the organization is frequently appraised for its solid stress on exclusiveness of goods and their high price, its goods will continuously keep on being stylish, widespread and salable. The idea to establish the company appeared in 1941, when a little studio in Manhattan was opened by the designer Bonnie Cashin for creating interesting leather purses. His principal assortment included only 12 purses handmade. Comparable to various exciting, excellent and simultaneously attractive products, Coach’s goods rapidly became widespread, that, in sequence, led to the growth and advance progress of the organization.
The company operates North American luxury market. The global luxury goods retail market was significantly affected by the economic slowdown and financial crisis of 2007-2009 as consumers in most income categories cut back on discretionary purchases. However, according to the research of the international consulting firm Bain & Co, one of the three most influential in the industry along with McKinsey & Company and the Boston Consulting Group, the size of the global luxury market registered peak double-digit growth. In this case, North America remains the largest source of profit for sellers of private jets, luxury cars and other luxury goods. In addition, the USA is home to the largest number of wealthy people in the world. Only in one New York City more than 7 thousand persons, whose fortune exceed $30 Mio, were registered. All this gives grounds to assume that the impressive results in a country will persist in the near future.
Leading brands in the traditional luxury category included such fashion design houses Prada, Burberry, Hermes, Gucci, Polo Ralph-Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Louis Vuitton. Some of these luxury goods makers also broadened their appeal with diffusion lines in the accessible luxury market to compete with Coach, DKNY and other lesser luxury brands. However, industry sales in the USA had become more dependent on the success of the diffusion lines in the accessible luxury category.
Therefore, in order to conduct proper marketing research specified marketing tools should be applied by Coach Inc., namely PESTEL-analysis (comprehensive analysis of the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors), which results are used for the strategic planning, SWOT-analysis (estimation of company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), which allow defining prospects of operating specified market, and Porter five forces’ model (strategic analysis of five components, namely industry rivalry, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants and threat of substitutes). All mentioned tools will give the whole picture of the situation in the market for Coach Inc. as well as provide it with the possibility to change its strategy or just modify it for improving the performance.

References

Coach Inc. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.coach.com/