Use the Slept Framework to Analyse the Current External Business

A. Written Report (25%) You are required to analyse the vexation environment of a UK based manufacturer of a luxury product of your choice. Please note that * The actual company is hypothetical. * It is assumed to supply to the up commercialize department stores and boutiques around the world but its main grocery store is the UK. * You moldiness agree your specific product with your tutor. * By luxury product, we mean an expensive product that is not a basic necessity. To complete this assessment task, you must a. Use the SLEPT framework to analyse the stream external business environment for issues that may affect your company.Attach this in the Appendix. No word make for this section. b. Drawing on your analysis of the external business environment, explain and justify the tierce most important issues onlinely facing your company. Word limit is 2000 words for this section. Word verge The word limit is 2000 words (excluding any items in the appendix**). Students are advised t o stick to the word limit if you exceed the word limit, it should be at bottom the 10% rule. Work submitted that exceeds the word limit may be penalised on the basis of failure to demonstrate academic discipline. *The Appendix should only be utilise to support your discussion (which is what is being mark) with reference materials e. g. diagrams, s green goddessned images, Internet printouts, articles etc. It should not be used to supplement your essay so that more words sack be squeezed into your assignment In other words, a poorly written essay with a fantastic appendix is not going to achieve a good grade. Referencing To get a good grade, your discussion must be underpinned by a wide selection of secondary sources and academic materials (e. g. books and journal articles) throughout your work or where appropriate.All work must be fully referenced (preferably using the Harvard Referencing System) to ack instantaneouslyledge sources used or consulted for the production of your r eport otherwise it would be considered as plagiarism. Correct referencing is a vital skill you will need to master for any academic writing. Please DO NOT USE references taken from Wikipedia, MarketingTeacher. Com, QuickMBA. Com or similar websites that allow students to do a quick copy and paste quotations of academic concepts. These websites may be useful for initial research and/or reading but they should not end up in any part of your work as they are not legitimate academic sources.This mannikin of practice does not encourage deep learning. Deep learning can only come about if you invest time and effort into in-depth reading in original sources. A) Use the SLEPT framework to analyse the current external business environment for issues that may affect your company. Attach this in the Appendix. No word limit for this section. I will be using SLEPT in order to analyze the external business environment for key issues that may affect my high-fidelity firm. inscrutable Sounds is a luxury selling Hi-fi Company based in the United Kingdom. The company does compete internationally, however its main trade mainly takes smear within the UK.The market is estimated to be worth ? 2 billion in 2007 compared with a peak value of ? 2. 1 billion in 2005. The growth of the market for portable music players and, more recently, for home docking stations has offset a decline in home hi-fi system sales. The arrival of the iPod marked a sea change in the audio equipment market. Sales of MP3 players have grown dramatically at the expense of other portable music players, particularly CD players. In the home, CDs remain the dominant format but are increasingly played on PCs and laptops this change has adversely impacted the sale of stuffy home audio equipment (Mintel. generative Sounds does compete at the higher end of the hi-fi market with brands such as Sony and Panasonic. SLEPT framework is used to analyze the current external business environment for issues affecting a business such as replete Sounds. The luxury hi-fi market has many external influences which can affect it. Technology is one of the main external influences from the SLEPT analysis. Development in technology has meant that smaller and sleeker devices such as iPods are selling instead of traditional hi-fi systems. Advances in technology, for example advertising has greatly helped the growing sales in the hi-fi market.Many electronics companies tend to have huge celebrity endorsements which in subject boost their sales as slew nowadays tend to favour electronics which are advertised by celebrities and company the trend. It is said that companies such as Rich Sounds need to spend at least ? 1million on advertising in order to compete at the top level. (Mintel) Also more and more heap tend to download their music nowadays and this means an increase in competition for Rich Sounds as more people would demoralize computers and laptops rather than hi-fis.Ownership of PCs has now reac hed high levels and the majority of consumers are accessing the Internet at least once a week at home. Another issue in SLEPT is economic factors. The current credit crunch has resulted in more and more people having less disposable income and this knock on effect means electronic sales could suffer. It is thought that receivable to this, people are less likely to buy hi-fis, but instead buy necessities. The credit crunch has also reduced the summate of affluent people and this means it could reduce the market size and this means Rich Sounds could become more competitive.It could be said that spending on repairs has fallen dramatically oer the last five years, as lower product prices mean it is often more cost-efficient to replace than repair. The final issue linked to economic factors is society. Hi-fis are associated as being a seasonal product especially at Christmas time when people are buying them for presents so this is when Rich sounds would expect a huge increase in sales. Also people that work long hours and work further away from home can help boost Rich Sounds sales. Nowadays, commuting to work is tedious to a lot of people and so they can listen to audio equipment at this point.The final issue in SLEPT is governmental issues. Although there is not much to say for this point, I can briefly say that tax issues affect my firm. B) Drawing on your analysis of the external business environment, explain and justify the three most important issues currently facing your company. Word limit is 2000 words for this section. I will now discuss the three most important issues from the SLEPT analysis and these are the technological, social and economical issues. Trends are an important aspect of the economic environment.Nowadays it is becoming increasingly more fashionable to follow celebrity trends and those celebrities who advertise electronics such as hi-fis tend to sell the most. An example of this is when Sony used Justin Timberlake dancing on their adver ts to help promote their goods and this saw a huge increase in sales. Research suggests that the two most popular hi-fi companies are Panasonic and Sony and these spend millions and millions on advertising. This means Rich Sounds could advertise new equipment with contrastive celebrities to help promote it hugely. Another economic factor is the credit crunch.It has resulted in people having a lot less disposable income and so therefore hi-fi sales will fall dramatically. Due to this people will not splash out on luxury goods like hi-fis, however they will buy necessities instead. This provides a knock on effect and therefore Rich Sounds sales may fall. Also the credit crunch has seen a reduction in the amount of wealthy people and this can reduce the size of the market and therefore make Rich Sounds more competitive. http//academic. mintel. com. lcproxy. shu. ac. uk/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/show&/display/id=271602/display/id=299002hit1