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Supporting the Development of Marketing Capability of Small Businesses: The use of Diagnostic Audits to Benchmark an SME's competencies against critical marketing success factors
Contents
Introduction-2
The Identification of Critical Success Factors in Marketing-2
Showcasing/Evaluation of key diagnostic audit tools-4
Conclusion-6
References-7
Introduction
In this paper I will showcase how supporting the Development of Marketing Capability of Small Businesses and The use of Diagnostic Audits to Benchmark an SME's competencies against critical marketing. Small businesses struggle with lots of elements of the business world both external and internally exploring the use of business tool kits, the paper will discuss how these will help SME's and which kind of tool kit is best for certain company's.
Small micro-businesses generally only employee between 0-9 people, which in 2012, there were 4.7 million micro businesses within the UK. This figure constituted towards 96% of all businesses (Parliament.uk, 2013). SME's will play a key role in helping to stimulate economic growth in the UK and help the recovery from recession.
The Identification of Critical Success Factors in Marketing
The introduction of a product to a market place with success is a difficult process, given that successes in a sector can be few and far between for small business. Segmentation is a key issue, exploiting gaps within this market, can lead to rapid growth when coupled with a good marketing plan. It is important to implement some strategies where the progress of the small business can be monitored and control measures can be established. These control measures can be used to monitor prices, brand positioning and reputation. This idea is based around value chain analysis, as it involves all aspects working together to create customer value (2010, pg. 108).
Implementing a value chain analysis, will allow small businesses to access all areas internally to...