The future environment for a chosen brand and its impact on marketing decisions.

B Q Company

Back in 1960s , home improvement was a pastime for the minority Professional building supplies were mostly located at builder 's merchants and service provided by large stores was intimidating to the average DIY 'er . The first B Q was opened by Richard Block and David Quayle (whose surname initials later provided the company name ) in Portswood Road , Southampton , in Hampshire in 1969 . Its mission was to bring value , longer opening hours and a broader product range to everyone (B Q PLC 2007 . By 1979 , B Q had a PLC

2007 . Through the early 1980s , B Q grew rapidly and became part of the Kingfisher Group (B Q 's parenting company , and by the end of the decade B Q had expanded to 280 stores and offered customers larger stores and even greater product range (B Q PLC 2007 . In 1995 , the first larger format B Q warehouse store opened and B Q began opening for business on Sundays (B Q PLC 2007 . The first store outside the UK was opened January 1996 , in Taiwan . In 1998 , B Q merged with France 's leading home improvement retailer , Castorama , to become the largest home improvement retailer in Europe (B Q PLC 2007

B Q adapted a click-and-mortar approach to stay up to date with technological changes . B Q 's website , HYPERLINK "http /www .diy .com www .diy .com , has been transactional since early 2001 , providing access 24 hours a day , 7 days a week , offering products , expert advice inspirational room ideas and `how to ' guides , as well as general information on stores (B Q PLC 2007 . The average visiting number on the site has increased tenfold since that date . Their research shows 60 ,000 to 600 ,000 visitors a week , 90 of whom visit a store , and 12 of store visitors have already used the site for research prior to their visit (B Q PLC 2007 . This demonstrates a good cross over between the virtual and physical stores (B Q PLC 2007

B Q is continuing to evolve its product offer , providing the broader range of products needed to complete home improvement projects and the associated finishing touches , along with existing core DIY products . A wider range of products are available through special , where goods can be ed in-store , from a catalogue or online and delivered directly to the consumers home

Macro-Environment (PEST

The marketing macro-environment (Kotler and Keller

77 2003 ) is understood as the major forces that exist outside the business domain These are the forces that the company must function within , but may have little control over . Kotler and Keller (2003 ) identify the macro-economic forces as the PEST analysis , which is compromised of political , economical , social and technological forces that place pressure on the business

Political

Organizations today are subject to an increasing number of regulations that entail compliance . Government regulations are sometimes threatening mechanisms for value representation and virtually no support to communication processes that create win /win situations where multiple stakeholder and shareholders...