JUNEL M.

ALBACITE
BSHM-I-B CALOOCAN BRANCH
MACRO PERSPECTIVE
MS. RASILDA ARTIOLA

Make an example of threats to be your

company's opportunity.
1. Your competitors new product .
While we’re exploring the idea of marketing
threats on its own, here, it should be
mentioned that the whole analysis of the
threats in your market fits into a wider
framework known as SWOT analysis. Before
you can explore your ideas and options on
how to overcome the threat and weakness
that is facing you, you should understand
what SWOT analysis is all about. SWOT
stands for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats. It is a method by
which a business can analyze its external
environment in order to better plan its future
strategies for getting some leeway in the
market.
Strengths
These are the strengths of the business. They
are what makes a business stand out from its
competition and, ideally, what the business
does best. A business might be particularly
good at producing quality goods, providing
excellent customer service, or stimulating
employee morale like none of its
competitors. Whatever the strength is, it
should give the business some kind of
competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Weaknesses
These are the weaknesses of the business.
They are the things that the business should
look into improving going forward. A
business that produces excellent software
might have poor customer service. On the
other hand, it might have the best customer
service in the market but the worst product
quality. Whatever the weakness is, it should
be something inherent in the business that it
can control and work on improving.

Opportunities
These are external opportunities in the
industry environment that the business can
take advantage of. Typically, opportunities
aren’t always opportunities for every player
in a market. They are usually opportunities
because the combine with the individual
strengths o the business in such a way that
the business can exploit the opportunities to
make a profit. They could also be general
opportunities caused by a gap in the market
that a business.
Threats
These are external threats that the business
faces that could potentially inhibit its ability
to make a profit or grow. Threats are not
always threats for all players involved in a
market. Sometimes they are threats for a
single business because the external
conditions mesh with the weaknesses of the
business in such a way as to form threats.
The business should thoroughly analyze all
the threats it faces, see how they are
exacerbated by the business’s own
weaknesses, and take the necessary steps to
mitigate the threats before they become
disastrous to the business.

A Closer look at Threats

Marketing threats can come in many different
shapes and sizes. They could be anything,
including regulatory changes that make
operations more expensive in general or
compliance very difficult, new products coming
into the market that perform better and are
priced lower, competitors coming into the
market who can operate at a lower cost than the
business, or just new competitors in general. In
fact, threats could be there for a business before
it even gets into business: they are called
barriers to entry in that case. Additionally,
threats may be caused by political, economic,
social and technological changes in the
environment. At the heart of the matter is the
fact that a threat is pretty much anything
inhibiting its profit-making or operations.
Monitor Your Threats Closely
Because the economy is always changing, more
so at varying speeds from industry to industry, a
business should constantly monitor the threats
that it faces within its environment and come up
with an effective strategy to manage these
threats. Additionally, the business should be
prepared to alter and improve this strategy as
new threats come up or things change about the
old threats. Here a powerful tool you can use to
your advantage is the internet, which will allow
you to monitor what your competitors are up to
and perform competitive threat analysis as well
as to get a good idea what new threats are
coming up in the industry. Of particular
importance are price comparison sites, which
you can use to stay alerted about low prices
coming up in the market as competition.

Different Types of Threats in the Market and

How to Overcome Them
There are two main ways to protect your market
share from being cannibalized b competitors
offering low prices and generally overcome
competition. You can either play on your
product costs or your product strengths.
If you have an advantage over your competitors
in terms of cost, then you can utilize that
advantage to lower your prices in order to
match those of your competitors. As long as
your costs are low enough, you will still be able
to make a profit, even with the low prices. The
problem with this strategy is that you can only
lower your prices up to a point before it ceases
to be viable. That is where the other strategy
comes in.
You can also differentiate yourself from your
competitors by adding value to your products in
some way. Of course, you should try to have
products that are of a higher quality than those
of your competitors. However, that is not the
only way that you can add value. You can also
include such things as free maintenance or free
installation or 24-hour customer service as part
of the price of the product. The customer will
feel like they’re getting a lot more bang for their
buck with you than they’re getting with your
competitors.

The Threat of New Products

If new products coming into your industry are
threatening your market share or profitability
due to their superior performance, there is one
major strategy you can apply that is effective in
the long run. You can have a product
development department that formulates and
implements product development strategies for
your business in the long run. This ensures that
you are always at the frontier of the market,
leading the pack when it comes to innovating
new products. As for a short-term solution, you
can think of licensing or sourcing any new and
promising.
The Threat of Your Own Weaknesses
Your own weaknesses are also a potential threat
to your business. They include weaknesses in
your supply chain, your distributor network,
your skills, your service portfolio or your
product. The can make you more vulnerable
over time and may also inhibit your ability to
deal with other more external threats as they
arise. You should, therefore, be able to identify
any weakness in your own business as soon as it
arises and prioritize which one to deal with in
order of the level of risk posed to the business.
By analyzing your weaknesses, you will be better
able to formulate effective training, recruitment,
and investment strategies that will help you
overcome problems in the long run.
2. The Loca Government's new Tax
Law
Economic activity reflects a balance
between what people, businesses, and
governments want to buy and what they
want to sell. In the short run—focusing
on the next one or two years—economic
policy has greater impact on the demand
side. When the economy is weak, for
example, the Federal Reserve tries to
boost consumer and business demand
by cutting interest rates or purchasing
financial securities. Congress, for its
part, can boost demand by increasing
spending and cutting taxes.

OTHER SHORT-RUN EFFECTS

Tax policies can also affect the supply of
labor in the short run. A cut in payroll
taxes could bring some workers into the
labor market or encourage those already
working to put in more hours. Such
supply changes have little effect on
output if the economy is operating well
below potential. Under those conditions,
people have difficulty finding more work
even if they want it. If the economy is
operating near potential, however,
increased labor supply can translate to
increased output

MULTIPLIERS
How much tax cuts boost demand (or
tax hikes restrain it) depends on the
sensitivity of household and business
behavior—for example, how households
divide increased after-tax income
between consumption and saving, and
whether businesses choose to hire and
invest more. Economists summarize
these effects in a simple measure, the
output multiplier, expressing how many
dollars of increased economic activity
result from a dollar reduction in taxes or
a dollar increase in government
spending. The Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) has estimated such
multipliers for a mix of tax and spending
pol.
As these estimates suggest, the stimulus from tax cuts or spending increases
depends on the strength of the economy. If it is operating close to potential
and the Federal Reserve is not constrained by the zero lower bound on
interest rates, fiscal policies will have a small short-run economic effect,
largely because the Fed will offset fiscal stimulus with interest rate hikes.
However, if the economy is far from potential and short-term interest rates
are close to zero, fiscal stimulus can have significantly more impact because
the Fed will not offset it. CBO estimates that fiscal multipliers are about three
times larger when the economy is very weak than when it is strong.

CBO’s numbers illustrate substantial uncertainty in our understanding of

how fiscal policies affect the economy. For a two-year tax cut aimed at lower-
and middle-income households, for example, CBO’s low estimate of the
multiplier (0.3) is just one-fifth the size of its high estimate (1.5).

But some things are clear. CBO’s estimates suggest that, dollar for dollar, tax
cuts are often a less effective means of stimulus than are spending increases.
If the federal government purchases goods and services itself (or helps state
and local governments do so), most or all of the spending will boost demand.
If the government cuts personal taxes, however, a substantial amount of the
added spending power leaks into saving. That dampening effect can be
moderated by targeting tax cuts to lower- and middle-income households,
which are less likely to save.

3.The place you like to put up a

business is more rainy days.
If you own a retail business, you
probably know that rainy days drive
down your traffic and sales. Don’t be
disappointed, though. The best
entrepreneurs take this kind of adversity
as an opportunity to innovate. Sure, you
can’t control the weather, but you can
create incentives to get your customers
into your store when the skies turn gray.
You’ve heard the old saying “save
money for a rainy day.” Now it’s time
to “make money on a rainy day.”

Wet Weather Discount Sales

Discount sales are a business strategy
minefield. They often flat-out don’t
work, and even if they do work, they run
the risk of giving your customers the
impression that your merchandise is
usually overpriced, which can impact
your long-term sales figures. However, if
you have a small, loyal core customer
base — and especially if you are on
friendly terms with some of these
customers — you can let them know that
you’ll offer discount sales on rainy days
to help boost business. Make the
discount

something simple that people can

remember, such as “20 percent off”
one item or the whole bill. And be clear
about what counts as a “rainy day”
because most wet days have plenty of
dry hours and even some sunshine. If
your rainy-day sales start to show some
promise, try broadening awareness of
them among your customer base and
the public by using traditional
advertising, word-of-mouth and social
networking.

Wet Weather Treats

This premise takes the discount sale idea
and runs in another direction with it.
Instead of chopping a few dollars off
your customers’ bills, add tasty value to
their shopping experience. Offer
complimentary hot beverages such as
cocoa, cider and tea. Consider getting a
permit to serve wine. Lay out a spread of
cheese, crackers, fruit and other
appealing foods. Make sure you practice
proper food-handling techniques if you
do, and check with the city first to see if
you need any permits to serve edibles in
public — it varies among jurisdictions.
Special Item Sales
Before modern business practices
identified the profitability of offering
most items for sale continuously, many
shopkeepers sold some items only on
special occasions. That’s still true for
products such as eggnog and fresh
cranberries. Of course, clothing stores
still use a seasonal sales scheme, but
it’s not often true on a daily basis
anymore. However, don’t let that stop
you from experimenting. Depending on
what kind of business you have, consider
letting your customers know that the
only way they can buy a few special
items is to come into your store on a
rainy day. This works best with
handmade products that customers
can’t easily buy elsewhere, and the
products themselves have to be luxuries
that customers want rather than things
they need. If it’s something they need,
they’ll go somewhere else to get it. The
goal with special- 'item sales on rainy
days is to make your customers feel as
though they’ll get a treat if they come
into your store that day — much like the
idea of complimentary hot chocolate
and cider, except with a product that can
directly help your bottom line.