Introduction
One of the essential elements of a business plan is a marketing plan. An effective marketing plan for a business requires an intelligently considered base, upon which a business gets to penetrate its target market with ease.
Through a marketing plan, a business gets to outline all its marketing strategies and efforts. Two cardinal elements that define the function and effectiveness of a business plan are strategy and procedure. A marketing plan also entails identifying and explaining the opinionated, monetary, shared, scientific, and intellectual environments that will support a business.
In addition, a marketing plan also develops a SWOT analysis for a business by identifying the strengths and weaknesses presented by the internal business environment, as well as identifying opportunities and threats to a business from the external environment. Bay Health Food Company is a business operating under five different environments, which present their own unique threats towards the actualization of its corporate goals.
Threats
Threats in this context refer to something that has an intention or ability to inflict harm on a business. Threats to a business come from the external environment. For the case of Bay Health Food Company, there are numerous threats posed by the five environments that support its operations. The first threat is high competition from existing food markets.
Many supermarkets in Canada are currently rebranding, as a response to the dynamic nature of food market in the country. This will likely pose a huge threat to the marketing strategies and efforts of the business due to high competition for market leadership and customers. Most food markets in Canada have a high matching percentage on the products sold, thus the need for Bay Health Food to identify those threats and eliminate them.
The second threat is the current economic situation in Canada. Canada’s economic performance is quite poor, and the government has been implementing numerous policies to help boost the economy.
Such policies are likely to pose a huge threat to the businesses marketing plans due to limitations on the scope of operations, and high cost of operations. Lack of economic regulations on businesses can easily crumble down a country’s economy, thus the move by the government to regulate how business conduct their activities and the valuing system used on various products.
The third threat to the business is ignorance by Canada’s population about organic foods and their numerous benefits. Most of the foods sold by Bay Health Food Company are organic. The fact that most consumers in Canada prefer to consume natural foods despite their high costs, may pose a huge threat to the anticipated success of the company in the market.
It is very hard to convince people to change their culinary culture, especially if it has a connection to their national culture. The company may also experience a hard time making any reasonable impact in Canada’s food market due to government regulations on organic foods.
Government regulations often pose huge threats to marketing activities of a business, as they can change anytime and a business will be required to conform to regulation touching on their businesses. This often creates a need to reorient prior plans in order to align them with new regulations. Other possible threats include high cost of operation and the unpredictable nature of customer needs in Canada.
Conclusion
Because all the five environments supporting the business will keep changing, it is important to revise all marketing strategies on a quarterly basis. Although it may increase the cost of operating the business, it is important for a business to achieve and maintain its leadership in the highly competitive Canadian market. The purpose of the regular revisions is to identify and eliminate emerging threats that can cripple business activities.