Micro and Macro Environment

Competitive advantage exists when a firm has strategy, product or an attribute that makes the firm capable of delivering similar benefit to that of competitors at a cheaper cost. Having competitive advantage is not enough the company should be capable of sustaining that particular competitive advantage for a longer period of time.

* Publics: Group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on an organization’s ability to achiever its objectives (Financial publics, media publics, Government publics)

Gordon (2011) describes publics as potential or actual audiences connected to various messages. (Rawlins, 2006) furthers this statement by stating that publics “…can be employees, shareholders, political leaders, consumers, etc.” and “…are often segmented even further by demographics, geographics, or psychographics.” (p.133). Grunig and Repper (1992) expand on this saying publics are self formed and identify organisations for attention, essentially meaning publics are groups of people linked by a common interest or problem. PR practitioners according to (Gordon,

* When a company goes public, it attracts the attention of the media and financial community thus providing free publicity and helps in creating a better corporate image

A Competitive Advantage is a peculiarity for an organization between it's competitors . It's achieved either by lowering prices or by greatening the value of the product or by offering luxury service and benefits to cope with high prices .

Competitive advantage is that a company has better ability in earning profit and profit growth compared to its competitors for the same group of customers in one industry.

"Fundamentally, public relation is relations with publics." (Public Relations Writing, 2000, p.10) The publics can be any group of people that shares a common interest.

To remain competitive a company must consider who their biggest competitors are while considering its own size and position in the industry. The company should develop a strategic advantage over their competitors’

There are different methods to analyse the micro environment of the company but two only three of them are used in this report to analysis the micro element which affect the strategy of the company. The three analysis techniques used to study micro elements affecting the strategy of Mercedes Benz include

Competitive strategy is the moves and methods that the firm has taken and is taking to appeal buyers, improve its market position, and to endure competitive pressures. The strategy is about what a firm’s capability to try to knock off competitors and attain competitive advantage, which can be offensive or defensive. There are three approaches to competitive strategy, which are low-cost leadership strategy where struggling to be the overall low-cost manufacturer in the in industry. Moreover, pursuing to distinguish one’s product offering from competitors (differentiation strategy), and the last one is focus or niche strategy where aiming on thin portion of the market rather than the whole market (Porter, 1998).

“Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitor’s” (Porter 1980:47). A successful business plan requires first and foremost the formation of an appropriate strategy. Through the implementation of a suitable strategy, the company is able to obtain its own industry niche and gain an understanding of its customers (Porter 1985). Whichever strategy is adopted it must be adequately integrated within the firms goals and missions to achieve a competitive advantage (Parker and Helms 1992).

The theory explains that the value of public relations in organization and society lies in socially responsible managerial decisions and quality organization to public relations. Organisations must behave in ways that solve the problems and satisfy the goals of the stakeholders as well as the management in order to be effective. Good relationship with organisation’s strategic publics is helpful in developing and achieving goals desired by both the organization and its publics, reducing costs of negative publicity, and increasing revenue by providing products and services needed by stakeholders. Practitioners identify publics who are affected by or affect organizational decisions and communicate symmetrically with them to build high quality long term relations.

Marketing environment is in relation to the marketing organization, its internal environment, microenvironment, and macro-environment. In the macro- environment, we identified several forces at play – political, economic, sociocultural, technological and legal (commonly referred to as the PESTL model).

As the name of the discipline implies, public relations is how an organization builds beneficial relationships with its key stakeholders. With effective communication as the practices’ primary tool, modern day organizations have taken advantage of proficient practitioners to boost exposure of their company and its message across to international audiences.

The microeconomics environment is the study of individuals and firms or organisations, which are directly linked to business. The study of microeconomics focus on subsisting and prospective stakeholders of company.