Marketing acts as a ‘look out’ for a business”. Discuss the extent to which marketers should concentrate on what is happening outside the business. Marketing links an organisation with it’s customers, it is a process of anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer needs and wants, in an profitable manner. Marketing is an integral part of a successful business, however, the significance as to what extent marketers should concentrate on what is happening outside of the business is debateable.

The positive aspects of analysing external activities are: a business can anticipate or identify needs and wants, which are not currently being fulfilled and predict what consumers are thinking. This is very useful as customers want a business that can satisfy their needs, helps to build strong customer relations and to be seen as innovative. This is also useful for identifying competitors and trying to remain ahead of them, gaining a larger market share, therefore, not being left behind. External activities are not limited to customers and competitors, there are also many other factors that cannot be controlled by the business.

Government policies can affect marketing in the sense that if the government increases VAT it will push the price of a product up, therefore, be less marketable. Local, national and international economies will also have an effect. If people cannot afford to buy a product, for example, a luxury item such as Rolex watches, in other words if the economy is depressed it is not efficient to have an expensive marketing campaign. Marketers should consider ethics, if a company is rumoured to violate human or animal rights it would not be very marketable.

It is important to look at demographic trends, especially for wealthier area. For example, poorer areas will be reluctant to give money to charities than wealthier area as they have less money. Returning to competition, new competitors mean production is not enough to create a successful product. Competition forces companies to differentiate themselves, have a unique selling point, making them more distinctive. However important the focus on external factors to a business are they should not be the sole focus of an organisation.

By placing too much emphasis marketing or the external environment of a business can lead to neglecting other vital area, such as, the product and it’s design process. Also, marketing is very costly, in terms of resources, time and money; this may lead to other areas of the business being under funded. The research found could result in the need for change, schedules and costing if the product is not well received. The change has to be managed efficiently and the structure has to be suitable and flexible. There is no obvious answer to the extent of how much importance marketing should be given.

In many cases marketing is extremely important to he success of a company, however, there is never any guaranteed success and at what cost. To some extent concentrating on outside of a business is important, but it should not take centre-stage, as other areas will be affected. No matter how well marketed a product is it will not sell if poorly designed and badly produced. This can have a great affect on a business in the long run as they will have a bad reputation. Therefore marketing is very important, but should be in proportion with the other areas of the business.