Market Environment Analysis Assignment Sample

Introduction - Market Environment Analysis 

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The reports from Open Family Australia suggest that over 80% of their clients are in the scenario due to family conflicts and family abusing. These cultural aspects along with the diversity in ethnicities in the population of the homeless youth make it difficult for handling their related issues. The other risk of racism that may occur while treating a young child can be damaging to the company. On the other hand, Sedig et al. (2014) suggested that economic pressures among families lead to conflict and that in a way has an impact on the mental aspect of the child. This results in them leaving their homes to achieve security. The homelessness issue that the company deals with involves regular funding and economic pressures may not allow the business to function properly. Reports suggest that in 2012, the need for donations and funding made the company resolve in selling ribbons and key rings to accumulate enough finance to deal with daily operations (Melbournevictory.com.au, 2016). Being a private organisation, funding from government sources is a bit difficult to achieve and makes the caretaking operations difficult. Moreover, it can be assumed that political pressure and interventions through various taxes and rules can hurt the free operational services that the company aims to achieve.

These issues highlight the various pressures that companies must endure while undertaking business operations. The technological and nature issues have little impact since the dealings are mostly based on human interaction.

Market Segmentation Strategy Used by Open Family Australia

According to Veselinovic and Drobnjakovic (2015), market segmentation is an essential tool that allows a business to properly identify and segregate its business propositions so as to achieve both competitive and business advantage. In the case of Open Family Australia, their attempt to promote mobile youth outreach services to reach an audience base that ranges from 18 to 35 years needs to be assessed and if any changes are needed to increase or decrease the age range. The segmentation strategy that can be adopted by the company can include the segmentation bases of Demographics, Psychographic, Behavioural and Geographic.

Market Targeting and Consumer profile

According to Caiazza (2015), a target market is clearly achieved after careful segmentation, and it is the final step before any decision-making procedure can commence. In the context of the four segments discussed earlier, the geographical segmentation can be adopted by Open Family Australia for business. This can be advised because it automatically integrates the factors of demographic segmentation as well. Since the company already operates in New South Wales and Victoria, it already has business settled business in both states having a combined population of 8,873,720 people. They must keep both cities as their target markets, and it is suggested that they include Queensland as well. This decision must be made keeping the geographic factor in mind along with the demographics of the state which suggests that a population of 2,189,878 people is capable enough for expanding business opportunities (Geonames.org, 2016).

Keeping in mind the fact that all the three states are geographically connected closely regarding distance make the involvement of Queensland an important target market. Considering the fact that the growth trend for Queensland from 2011 showed that the dominant age groups were 25-29 years and population under the age of 15 (Profile.id.com.au, 2016). This information shows the range of youth population that the company can target.

The growing competition in New South Wales and Victoria makes it important to select a new location to broaden reach and viability of the service. According to Tsai et al. (2014), an already established market requires less marketing efforts as compared to a new market. It also gives a chance for venturing into the new business territory.

Differentiation and Positioning Strategies

The new target market of Queensland provides a different opportunity for Open Family Australia to reach out to further homeless youth within the states of Australia. As per Anderson and Xie (2014), differentiation allows businesses to make themselves distinctive among the other rivals who are in a similar business mould. The five major factors of differentiation include product, image, service, people and channel. Among all these bases, the relevant base that can be used is the Service, Channel and Image. Ultimately the volunteers need explaining about the kind of service that the company will provide. The mobile service is a unique and easy way to reach out to the needy youth. Firstly, the cost of transportation will be minimal for the volunteers. Secondly, the promise of diligent service is essential since the business aims at aiding the needy youth. This brings us to the last base of the image of the company. According to Alhaddi (2014), volunteering for a noble cause is always a happy prospect that people are willing to undertake. In the case of the company, Open Family Australia has been one of the oldest and reputed companies and have been dealing in servicing the homeless for many years. This positive image can create the willingness to be a part of such a noble task. The services are of minimal effort and can be undertaken very easily; it also allows them to learn about the outside world and issues.

Conclusion:

The following study carefully suggests the various industry overview of the outreach services for homeless people in Australia. It significantly uses the case of Open Family Australia to outline its services and the various micro and macro environment such as demographic, economic, cultural, company, customers and competitors that influence operations. Accordingly, the market segmentation states that the use of age brackets other than 18-35 years if the company is to prosper. The target market of Queensland is suggested keeping the high range of youth population growth and the vast population. The service, channel and Image base is suggested to be most successful in positioning the service of mobile youth outreach. A perceptual map is used to illustrate the company's position as well.

References

Journals

Alhaddi, H., (2014). The influence of triple bottom line on strategic positioning: An exploratory case study on differentiation through the image. Journal of Management and Strategy, 5(1), p.55-58.

Anderson, C.K. and Xie, X., (2014). Pricing and market segmentation using opaque selling mechanisms. European Journal of Operational Research, 233(1), pp.263-272.

Caiazza, R., (2015). Factors affecting spin-off creation: Macro, Meso and Micro level analysis. Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 8(2), pp.103-110.

Banker, R., Mashruwala, R. and Tripathy, A., (2015). Does a differentiation strategy lead to more sustainable financial performance than a cost leadership strategy?. Management Decision, 52(5), pp.872-896.

Fazel, S., Geddes, J.R. and Kushel, M., (2014). The health of homeless people in high-income countries: descriptive epidemiology, health consequences, and clinical and policy recommendations. The Lancet, 384(9953), pp.1529-1540.

Hwang, S.W. and Burns, T., (2014). Health interventions for people who are homeless. The Lancet, 384(9953), pp.1541-1547.

Keuroghlian, A.S., Shtasel, D. and Bassuk, E.L., (2014). Out on the street: a public health and policy agenda for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth who are homeless. American journal of orthopsychiatry, 84(1), p.66-70.

Sedig, K., Parsons, P., Dittmer, M. and Haworth, R., (2014). The human-centered interactivity of visualisation tools: Micro-and macro-level considerations. In Handbook of Human Centric Visualization, 12(2), pp. 717-743.

Tsai, J., Kasprow, W.J., Kane, V. and Rosenheck, R.A., (2014). Street outreach and other forms of engagement with literally homeless veterans. Journal of health care for the poor and underserved, 25(2), pp.694-704.

Veselinovic, B. and Drobnjakovic, M., (2015). Qualitative and quantitative analysis of micro and macro aspects of agricultural finance. Ekonomika Poljoprivrede, 61(3), p.771-775.

Websites

Abs.gov.au. (2016). 2049.0 - Census of Population and Housing: Estimating homelessness, 2011. [online] Available at: http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/2049.0Main%20Features22011

Abs.gov.au. (2016). 3101.0 - Australian Demographic Statistics, Jun 2015. [online] Available at: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/featurearticlesbyCatalogue/7A40A407211F35F4CA257A2200120EAA?OpenDocument.

Dcp.wa.gov.au (2016). Homelessness in Western Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.dcp.wa.gov.au/servicescommunity/Documents/Homelessness%20strategy%20paper.pdf

Geonames.org. (2016). Biggest Cities Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.geonames.org/AU/largest-cities-in-australia.html.

Indexmundi.com. (2016). Australia Age structure - Demographics. [online] Available at: http://www.indexmundi.com/australia/age_structure.html.

Melbournevictory.com.au (2016). Open Family Australia to raise much needed funds on Friday night. [online] Melbourne Victory. Available at: http://www.melbournevictory.com.au/article/open-family-australia-to-raise-much-needed-funds-on-friday-night/fc3qni6u5to21xsj7gpklw23z.

NewsComAu. (2016). Youth homelessness is Australia's preventable $600m problem. [online] Available at: http://www.news.com.au/news/youth-homelessness-is-australias-preventable-600-million-problem/news-story/8029a03a6b696909ae61a1f0f42a1aed

Openfamily.com.au (2016). Mobile Youth Outreach - Open Family Australia. [online] Openfamily.com.au. Available at: http://www.openfamily.com.au/what-we-do/mobile-youth-outreach.html.

Profile.id.com.au. (2016). Five year age groups | Queensland | profile.id. [online] Available at: http://profile.id.com.au/australia/five-year-age-groups?WebID=120