Amazon is the worlds leading retailer after surpassing Walmart. Amazon’s subsidiary in the UK was ranked the top retailer in 2016. The tremendous success of Amazon is not accidental, which means that the business organisation has taken deliberate efforts to leverage the internal strengths and environmental opportunities, while mitigating the effects of internal weaknesses and environmental threats. Using PESTLE, and SWOT, the report will examine how Amazon Inc. UK can take advantage of its core strengths in digital innovation, and seize on opportunities in the current global market created by a competitive retailing environment as well as faltering rivals to benefit even further despite pending threats including Brexit.
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In 2015, Xiaomi was the biggest smartphone maker in China ahead of household names including Apple, Samsung and local rivals such as Huawei. A year later in 2016, its valuation stood at $45bn, a massive achievement for an upstart technology firm launched in 2010, the same year Apple released the IPhone 4. But fast forward to 2017, Xiamo had fallen from 1st all the way to 5th rank in the Chinese smartphone market alone, behind Chinese rivals Huawei, BBK (which offers the Oppo and Vivo brands) as well as Apple and Samsung. Its valuation has fallen drastically to just $4bn in 2017, from $41bn less in just one year. From being the bestselling smartphone brand in China to fifth. What happened to Xiaomi?
As will be looked at shortly using Pestel and Swot, many factors both macro and micro have contributed to Xiaomi’s fall from grace. While some are internal weaknesses due to poor strategic decisions, certain macro threats haven’t favoured the Chinese smartphone maker.
Samsung electronics is a technology company majorly dealing in the design, manufacture and marketing of smartphones, tablets and personal computers. The global smartphone market is a prominent oligopoly with both high-end and low-end players. Samsung being a high-end market player faces intense competition from Apple and low-end players like Huawei, Xiaomi who are affecting its market share. In 2017, Samsung had a global smartphone shipment market share of 21.6% with major competitors Apple and Huawei having 14.7% and 10.4% respectively (Statista 2018f). Various external factors affect the growth of Samsung and by using a pestle analysis, we realize how the political factors like the 3% increase in corporate taxes in South Korea threatens its profits, how high economic growth in US affects Samsung and how the Chinas growing population of the elderly and the middle class affects its profit margins. In addition, we look at how developments in technology can favor further growth of Samsung. Using swot analysis, we identify Samsung’s major strengths that can be deployed and weaknesses that can be improved upon to deliver products that meet consumer demand.
In 2016, over 8,349 EasyJet flights were either cancelled, or delayed over three hours or diverted due to severe disruption by external macro factors such as strikes, severe weather, terrorist attacks, and other airport issues. The total impact of these external events on profit was estimated at £150million (Annual Report 2016). PESTLE is used in strategy to analyse the macro environment and identify how external events in the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal environments might impact individual organisations within an industry. Managers use the PESTLE tool as an aid when studying key drivers of change in the external environment. These key drivers of change constitute opportunities and threats for firms and PESTLE helps identify them overcome. However, PESTLE is only a starting point since other frameworks such as SWOT and Porters Five Forces have to be used in conjunction to help firms like EasyJet utilise internal core competencies (strengths) so as to take advantage of opportunities while neutralising threats in its industry.
Samsung Inc. is a Korean electronics company currently engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of mobile communication and media devices, electronics, computers and portable digital music players, as well as related software, accessories and third-party applications. The company reported revenue of US$182,595 million during the fiscal year 2015 (Samsung 2016).
In 2016, Sainsburys, the UK 's second largest food retailer completed the acquisition of Argos and Habitat in a move designed to increase its non-food offer and retail space. In 2018, it announced a possible merger with third placed rival Asda in a move designed to increase its buying power and market share to make 'Sainsdas' the biggest supermarket chain in the UK. Using Pestle and Swot, this report examines the food retailing industry in the UK to reveal the major macro trends and competitive forces driving and shaping it, resulting in losses and gains for different players.
2017 was a challenging year for the United States carbonated soft drinks (CSD) market, which has continued to decrease for nine straight years as total sales and volume of sugary sodas consumed by Americans has continued to decline for 11 consecutive years. According to Kell (2017), this is part of a long-term trend driven by consumer fears over the use of high calorie sugars and artificial sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup and aspartame, two of the most controversial artificial sweeteners often used in diet colas. The use of such sweeteners is also the reason why sales of even diet sodas, supposed to be the industry saviours, continued to dip in 2016 with Diet Pepsi seeing a volume decline of 9.2% compared to 4.3% for Diet Coke as consumers opt for healthier options (Kell 2017).
With carbonated drinks like Pepsi Cola losing market share to non-carbonated drinks such as bottled mineral water, many food and beverage firms including PepsiCo are remaking their brand portfolios either through innovative reformulations of existing products or adding new product categories in order to tackle new food and beverage trends (Kell 2017b).
In the following section, we will identify the major food and beverage trends that are driving PepsiCo’s external market environment including the US soft drinks industry in general. This will help us understand how the beverage firm can utilise its brand competencies so as to take advantage of macro environmental opportunities while at the same time neutralising emerging threats that may undermine its progress.
Pestel is only a starting point when analysing the macro business environment of firms since other frameworks such as Porters Five Forces and BCG are also used in conjunction to assess how firms such as British Airways can utilise core resouces and competencies so as to take advantage of opportunities while neutralising competition and rising threats. In this strategy report, we analyse the internal and external environment of British Airways using Pestle, Swot, Porters five forces & BCG matrix during the years 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Virgin Atlantic is a British airline carrier that is co-owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group [51%] and Delta Airlines [49%]. Started in 1984, it is currently the UK’s best carrier in terms of punctuality, quality and the speed of dealing with compensation claims (Morris 2016). Latest revenues for the year ending 31 December 2016 were approximately £92million on operating profits of £23 million, 0.5% increase from the previous year (Annual report 2016).
Nike is an American company that is engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of apparel, footwear, equipment, services and accessories. The global clothing apparel market is oligopolistic with for players Nike, adidas, H&M and Zara having a combined market share of 7.0%. Considering the US footwear market, Nike accounts for 21.1% market share with major competitor adidas having 4.7% according to Statista (Statista 2018d). Various external factors have affected the growth of Nike, by using a pestle we analyze how political factors such as the US-China trade war and president Trump’s order to pull the US out of the Trans-pacific partnership trade deal has affected its growth, economic factors like low employment rate in the US can boost growth and social trends affect Nike’s growth while realizing major threats and opportunities. Using a porters five forces analysis, we identify points at which competitions has severely affected Nike’s growth.
