Andrew Ebiloma of Courier Regulatory Department had in his book Courier Development in Nigeria postulated five marketing environments for courier companies in Nigeria namely competitive environment, socio-cultural environment, technological environment, technological environment, economic environment and political-legal environment.
Explaining the competitive environment, he said that marketers are often faced with the types of competition which are competition among similar products, competition among substitutes and competition for consumer purchases. This is because competitive environment often determines the success or failure of a product.
According to him, marketers should monitor and assess competitors’ marketing strategies. They should consider new product offerings along their line of business such as technological advancements, price reduction or adjustment, special promotion and other competitive methods. As part of competitive strategies, courier companies now engage in promotions which most of them say, are avenues to reward loyal customers but the bottom-line is that the hype involved in such campaigns have far reaching effect on loyal customers as well as potential ones. It is also interesting to discover that some courier companies have started advertising in the newspapers to boost their customer base.
However the ability to engage a competitive strategy in the competitive environment is dependent upon resources and profit expected. It will not make a good business sense for a courier company to embark on an extensive media campaign when actually it has nothing on ground in terms of character; network among others that will attract clients to patronize that courier company.
Ebiloma suggested that every competitor must address questions such as, should we compete? If yes, in what market and how the competition should be done?
The socio-cultural environment, he said is another important aspect of the marketing environment which considers how the society perceives the products and services on offer by the competitors and how they affect the needs of the society.
He explained that for companies to entrench a product on the society, they should engage in corporate social responsibility to foster good relationship between them and their products or services as well as the society where it operates.
Jude Ugwoke, general manager of IFEX Express Courier added that corporate social responsibility is a long term survival strategy of a company based on adding value to a company’s image. He advised that: “Companies must be involved in corporate social responsibility as every company is made up of internal and external environments which interrelate with various units to make or mar the survival of the organization”.
Economic environment influences buying power and marketing strategies of companies including the courier. In this period of economic recession, companies are careful in the way they spend .They adopt marketing strategies that spend less but attracts more profit. The situation becomes more frightening when we hear that some very big companies in America and Britain are shedding off workers before they sink even when others have actually sunk.
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