Three imediments to small businesses in America Research Paper

Three imediments to small businesses in America - Research Paper Example Small businesses in America face many difficulties, but three that are documented in current literature are financing, race, and having a solid business strategy. The literature researched shows three reasons small businesses in America can have difficulty. Part of the discussion around small business difficulty is the definition of what it means to have a small business success. There are several factors affecting survival of small businesses in the United States, but the most dominant are racism, ineffective strategic planning and poor management. In the United States the race factor plays an important role in most of the operations and functioning in the country. Small businesses require loans to boost their performance and increase income. This is because most if the small businesses have limited financial supply. However, racism has greatly affected availability of loans to most of entrepreneurs with small businesses. Most small business owners are African American and the race factor has hindered them access to loans and hence affected development of small businesses. On the other hand, whites are accessing loans. However, not most of the whites are engaged in small businesses. This has affected growth if the small business industry to the expense of large scales businesses (Weinzimmer and Manmadhan, 2009, p 171). For the survival of an organization, it has to posses an effective marketing department. The marketing department is charged with ensuring public awareness of the services and the products of the organization. The department works in conjunction with the public relation department hence inform the public while maintaining a good relation and image with the public. For proper and effective marketing, an organization has to strategically plan the marketing process. For instance, before a company commences it has to determine the kinds of services or products to offer to the public. For established companies, they use marketing as a tool of determi ning the changes they ought to make to their products or services so as to enhance sales. Generally, companies use marketing to determining appropriate strategies to use in sales, development and communication with an aim of increased sales and containing competition (Cavalluzzo, & Wolken, 2005, p 2158). Due to the limitation of resources, small businesses ought to strategically plan. Therefore, small businesses strategically plans the marketing process hence concentrate their limited resources to the greater opportunities available. When the process is effective, the company may realize sales increase and hence achieve competitive advantage in the market. The strategy may enable a company to fill the needs of the market and hence reach the objectives of the market. A good strategy has to effectively scan both the external and internal environments. This can be achieved via appropriate Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats (SWOT) analysis. After the analysis then a company may set a strategic plan for market, establish goals, identify alternatives in the market, determine market mix and implement them (Bergen, 2001, p 460). Strategic marketing plan An effective, efficient and adaptable marketing plan has several components. These components help in the implementation and achieving

Marketing cases Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Marketing cases - Essay Example The main macro-economic factors that influenced the Target’s performance during that period were the economic and social conditions that existed among the consumers. Due to the economic recession in 2008, there was a high unemployment level and an increased inflation, which had a direct connection with the sales outcome of the company. Along with this, the purchasing power of the consumers began to deteriorate due to the decline in the income of the sizable households. With the company’s products being viewed as expensive ones, it further impacted Target’s revenues. However, Walmart showed a far better growth due to its cheaper prices strategy hindering the Target’s upscale products. The Target’s â€Å"pay less† strategy was a risky one as it has to sustain its high-quality. That is, even while coping up with the changing economic conditions and its consumers’ attitude, it needs to focus on quality. However, it has successfully managed to overcome through the recession crisis and have switched towards a hopeful direction with this new strategy. Despite the high unemployment and increased inflation, Target takes an optimistic view in improving its sales through its new launches such as mini-grocery stores and up-and-up. By focusing on its ‘pay less’ part, Target has certainly pursued a best strategy by retaining the quality of its products even while emphasizing on the discount part. Expanding the advertising campaigns before focusing towards lower prices should have been the alternate strategy for Target during their decline in sales and revenue. As the company was keen on offering one stop shopping with lowered prices and improving the store’s infrastructure, it did not have enough time to analyze the consumers’ tendency towards their products, thereby missed formulating effective advertising strategies. Once they found the