Marketing Analysis of Ecover's Current Position in the Market
1. Introduction
The assignments mainly consists of the following parts:
Firstly, an analysis of Ecover’s current position in the market.
Secondly, how Ecover is changing its competitive strategy.
Thirdly, consumer behaviour towards detergent.
Finally, an outline for new marketing strategy for Ecover to enter the supermarket.
2. Background
Ecover was founded in 1979 by Frans Bogaerts.It was a modest little detergent company in Malle in northern Belgium. Pierres Magnin a successful Swiss businessman dealing with pharmacies and health food stores, suggested Bogaerts to develop an eco-friendly detergent free of harmful chemicals (which was to be banned by the
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By 1990, all EU countries except France banned the use of phosphates in washing powders.
Press reports told of the adverse effects of phosphates on river life.
Threats
In December 1991, the European Council’s Environment Ministers agreed to set up an eco-labelling scheme. This was a major threat to Ecover as this would undercut the major difference between them and the conservative detergents.
Economical:
Economic trends affecting business include depression (world-wide economic collapse), interest rates, inflation unemployment, consumer price index real GNP, personal income savings rate and capacity utilisation. Companies must choose those economic influences that are relevant to their business and monitor them. Not only the national economic factors should be considered but also the regional and global economic factors.
Social:
Important aspects of social environment are beliefs, attitudes, lifestyle changes, age distribution etc. The relevance of the social environment to a particular business will vary depending on the nature of the business. As Ecover is a consumer-products company, the impact of social environmental is very crucial.
The society in which people grow up shapes their beliefs, values and norms. The people living in a particular society hold many core beliefs and values that tend to persist.
Opportunities
In
Cultural and societal norms are based on aspects such as differences in opinion, beliefs, and backgrounds. New norms are constantly created as generations come and go, with societal changes taking place daily. Norms are shaped based on the way people are raised, the individuals we surround ourselves with, and the transformations that occur in our lives. Although groups identify and set norms, these can change in our personal lives based on the social groups we interact with as we grow through life, such as groups of friends from childhood that may be different from groups of friends we make as we enter adulthood. As we change from one group to another and transition through life, the result of social norms can be seen through new behavior. For example, an individual who did not grow up regularly attending church or practicing a religion, but later in life decided to start attending religious services and practicing, behavior changes would be evident based on guidelines set by that religion That individual may stop
Businesses are affected by the economy and sometimes the economy can have a dramatic drop in countries causing issues for some business mainly due to 4 factors. These factors are inflation, Economic growth, Exchange rates and unemployment.
values and behaviors relating to those values then the larger society that they are a part of
In society, many people act different ways and were raised differently, making a divergent society. The reason people are different is because of their nurturers, there are a lot of people that influenced others in their lives helping them become the person they are whether it was good or bad. There are many people that think that everyone is born the way they are and live by their nature. And others who think people influence and make other people do the things they do. The way people act and the beliefs they hold stem purely from their nurturer; people will act a certain way based on how they were raised and nature has a lesser impact on the actions people take.
In the following sections, I will argue the state of the economy is the most influential factor in
Moral traits are shaped by the culture you’ve grown up in. This can be found true in the novel The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, characters prove in many ways how their culture shows through the approach to the Price family. The Price family moved to the Kilanga to spread the word of Jesus Christ. While on their mission they come to meet a individual by the name of Anatole Ngemba that shows how the Congo does define a person's character but by their actions only.
Environment- the environment can affect the human activity. So for example; global warming which is the warming of the planet’s surface that is caused by carbon dioxide. In order to run a business efficiently they would need to make sure that their customers are aware of all the environmentally friendly activities that they do and that they are not harming the environment in anyway as some customers do take keeping environment healthy seriously. Sainsbury’s is really cautious about caring about the environmental and being eco-friendly and making sure that they are not causing any damage to the areas around them.
All of these factors have an enormous impact on my selected business (Barclays) as the economy goes from growth and decline. As well as many others, Barclays is majorly affected as it is in the financial industry. These different factors appear throughout what is called the ‘Business Cycle’. The cycle shows the fluctuation of the activity within the economy over a period of time and consists of 4 main stages; as well as many others,
As human beings, we all have our own values, beliefs, and attitudes. These things develop over the course of our lifetime and at any point can change based on an experience that we may have. Our family, friends, community and the experiences we have had all contribute to our sense of who we are and how we view the world.
In addition, they too have been growing and learning in their own environment with different family members’ influences. Each of our own influences, in turn, influences others. From there, we again take in and learn what we can so we can make our own decisions on how to define our “selves”. Later, society influences our thoughts on who we are as people and our relation to the world as a whole. There is a constant norm that people try to assimilate to or diverge from. Society presents its own ideas of who we should be as people, and it is then our own job to take that information and do what we will with it to make our own definition for ourselves of who we are.
The general environment is composed of segments that are external to the firm. Although the degree of impact varies, these environmental segments affect all industries and firms competing in them. The
The society a person grows up in has certain norms, traditions, beliefs, language and dialects, values and acceptable behaviors, religious influences, modes of dress,
Economics – organisations operate in environments that have dynamic economic cycles. This necessitates change so as to keep a breast with prevailing economic trends. Good examples include economic cycles, unemployment rates, inflation and even foreign exchange rates. For instance high inflation rates reduce disposable incomes of households thus lowering their purchasing powers. This may signal the production department to come up with new product that meets the demand of consumers (British Journal of Management, 67).
The economic and social factors play a crucial role in determining monetary climate that the business operates in and the nature of consumption habits that prevail within that particular area concerning lifestyles. These social aspects help a business organization to evaluate potential changes brought about by their products in the market. Evans and Richardson (2007), insist that an enterprise must factor in technological solutions that it can introduce within the market it seeks to establish itself and research initiatives it can introduce to help improve its operations. The environmental factors should be assessed to establish potential impacts of the activities carried out by the organization in the environment. It is important for any enterprise to be familiar to all
An organization is an open system; therefore it interacts with its environment. To manage the relationship with the environment, a large part of strategic planning is concerned. The environmental factors can be divided to 2 main categories, which is MACRO and MICRO .Macro environmental factors seriously affect an organization business practice, profitability and future progress. It can