Marketing environment and external factors

Marketing Environment:

Based on the specific source used, marketing can be described in various ways though it basically refers to the process of planning and executing the formation, pricing, promotion, and allocation of ideas, products, and services to develop exchanges that meet individual and organizational objectives. Notably, this process of establishing a market for products and/or services is dependent on market research. Generally, the marketing process is geared towards the fulfillment of a firm's objectives while providing a means for fulfilling the needs and demands of customers as well as stakeholders. Notably, the fulfillment of the stockholders' and customers' needs is also driven towards providing a means of profit for the organization.

Marketing for the Hershey Company:

The Hershey Company is largest producer of quality chocolate within the North American region and the worldwide leader in chocolate and sugar confectionary. In addition to chocolate and confectionary goods, the firm's principal product groups include food and beverage enhancers like baking ingredients, and mint and gum refreshment items ("The Hershey Company," 2009). Throughout its global operations, the company functions as a single reportable portion in producing, marketing, selling, and distributing several packages of its variety of products in over 80 brand names.

The Hershey Company has divided the selling and marketing of the organization into three different segments i.e. Hershey North America, Global Marketing Group, and Hershey International. These segments are responsible for leveraging the firm's marketing and sales leadership in America and Canada, focus on important strategic growth areas in international markets, and develop capabilities that maximizes on unique customer trends. Notably, the company's marketplace extends from its supply chain to the customers enjoying the goods.

Marketing Environment Forces:

In its marketing initiatives, the Hershey Company product and services is likely to be impacted by some marketing environment forces. The three marketing environment forces that will impact the firm's marketing of products and services include economic, societal, and technological factors. The societal forces are factors that basically contribute to changing demands for a product or service. The Hershey Company will be affected by societal forces because marketers have the task of providing products or services that the society wants while lessening what they don't want. As a result, marketers are responsible for change products or services based on the changing societal needs. For instance, the society has become increasingly concerned with the need for healthy diet products that contribute to the need for manufacturing sugar-free, minimal fat, and lessened calorie offerings in the chocolate industry (Sena, n.d.).

The likelihood of the impact of economic forces originates from the need for marketers to change their marketing mix as the economy undergoes through various stages of the product life cycle. In most cases, the buyer patterns and behaviors are different depending on underlying conditions of economic growth. Some of the major economic factors that could impact this firm include economic recession, depression, recovery, and recovery. On the contrary, technology forces will impact the Hershey Company since the technological knowledge of consumers impacts their desires for products and services. This is primarily because technological advances have created opportunities for new products, new methods for influencing customers, and new selling methods.

Strategies for Overcoming Threats:

Generally, the technological, societal, and economic factors provide marketing environment factors that pose marketing threats to the approaches adopted by the Hershey Company is selling and distributing its products and services to its customers. Marketing threats are environmental factors that can hinder the organization from accomplishing its marketing goals and objectives. The identification of these forces in the external environment is part of the strategic planning process through conducting a SWOT analysis. Consequently, the firm needs to overcome these threats through adopting some appropriate and effective strategies.

For the Hershey Company to deal with these marketing threats, some of the most suitable strategies could include monitoring, developing new products, protection of customer base, and identification and minimization of weaknesses (Linton, n.d.). The need to monitor threats in the business is fueled by the pace of change in the economy in order to change the business strategy as new threats emerge. The firm should also incorporate new product development plans in its long-term business strategy in order to deal with the threats. In light of the emergence of new competitors, the organization should develop a customer loyalty strategy in order to protect its customer base. Furthermore, the identification and lessening weaknesses through prioritizing actions help the firm to deal with forces that represent greatest risk.