2- Marketing

Undertake a scanning exercise of the UK market for The Shetland Wool Company,
In particular, explore the UK market opportunities and trends, identify their potential customers and make recommendation on which target segments are most suitable, and suggest an implementation plans for the business to move forward. The report should have included the following:

• The macro environmental factors: to attempt to indicate how this sector might develop. (Both in the short and long term)

• The micro environment actor: with a particular focus upon understanding the nature and basis of competition within the market and in attempting to identify viable market segments.

• Analysis potential target customers segments: consider various options with o a mix of factors including customer preferences, sector types, geographical location etc, you need to suggest various options for segmentation and evaluate different options, before you recommend which chosen customer segments are most suitable for the company.

Note: whilst you may draw upon worldwide insights for the macro analysis, the micro analysis needs to concentrate upon the UK environment.

• Then, taking one of the segments identified, undertake a viability analysis to gauge its future attractiveness / potential (or otherwise) over the next 5 years.

• The key financial data needed to do calculations against is supplied above, but ensure that you use this in line with the indicators gathered, e.g. market size, growth, etc, from the market data you gather.

• You are required to make recommendation to suggest a marketing practice with implementation plan, including product and brand strategies, pricing strategies, the promotional and distribution strategies that you consider most appropriate for the target customer segments.

• Taking the data gathered, write this up as a report for companies interested in exploring this opportunity. You need to present both data and arguments/reasoning for the recommendations put forward. Be they to engage with or keep away from this market. Ensure that this is fully referenced / underpinned.

• When writing up this report, you need to demonstrate the degree to which the data you rely on to reach your conclusions is reliable. Thus you need to include, as appropriate, any notes of caution or further research investigation that may be appropriate before any company acts upon your conclusion.

• Word count: 2500 words, table, diagram can be put into appendix.