Question

Market Demographics The profile for BOG's customer consists of the following geographic, demographic, and behavior factors: Geographics • The immediate geographic target is the city of Stevens, TX with a population of 213,000. • A 35-mile radius will be served. • The total targeted population is 14,556. Demographics • 69% female, 31% male. • Ages 28-65. • Have a household income over $45,000. • Corporate customers have between 15-85 employees. Behavior Factors • Purchase gifts regularly. • Prefer to give gifts that are somewhat practical or at least will be used as opposed to being shelved. • Appreciate the element of presentation in gifts that they give. • Enjoy spending some of their discretionary income on gifts for friends. • Recognize the value of giving a gift to an employee and the invaluable goodwill that the unsolicited/unexpected gift generates. 2.1.2 Market Needs Bassket of Goodies is providing its customers with very attractive gourmet food baskets. These baskets come in several standard themes as well as the option of creating a custom basket. BOG seeks to fulfill the following benefits that are important to customers: • Selection- BOG offers many different stock baskets as well as the opportunity for the customer to choose the perfect ingredients for their basket. • Price- BOG operates on a low overhead model, allowing them to generate fair margins and competitive prices. • Customer Service- BOG recognizes that superior customer service is needed in order to gain market share and be competitive. The Basket of Goodies Page 3 2.1.3 Market Trends The market trend for the gift basket industry has been one of consolidations and mergers with larger companies purchasing smaller local companies. This trend can be rationalized for several reasons: • Economies of scale allows larger companies to generate better margins than small, local players. • Brand equity/recognition is powerful within the industry as many customers choose their basket maker from popular, well-known companies, such as Hickory Farms, based on name alone. Therefore it makes sense for larger companies to grow in number of franchises/outlets and geographic coverage.

Question: Describe the external environment

Answer 1

An external environment is composed of all the kinds of factors lying in the outer environment which impact the business as a whole. This external environment is again subdivided into MICRO environment and MACRO environment.

Micro environment- these are the small forces within the company itself which affects the way a company serves the company. It is somewhat under the control of the company to manage. This includes, customers, suppliers of raw material, the competitors,

Macro environment- macro environment includes those forces which are not in the boundary of the organisation to control. It can be due to legal requirements to be fulfilled as per the by the law . It includes technological forces, the demographic forces (like age, gender, linguistic group ), political tensions in the region or country, economic fluctuations like inflation or recession in the economy.