Variables not controlled by the marketer.
We have seen that a marketer controls the variables product, price distribution and promotion to determine is marketing mix. In addition, he must contend with a host of external variables that affect the marketing effort. These variables are not ordinarily controllable by the marketer and are therefore classified as environmental constraints .
They include competitors, the state of economy such as growth of recession, consumers supplies and middlemen, technology, laws and regulations, the physical environment such as natural resources and climate and the large society with its culture.
Of all the environmental forces, the marketer is likely to feel the impact of competitors actions most kneely unless he operates as a protected monopoly or in a cartel.
When economy is an upswing comma marketers are likely to make expensive plans are likely to be more conservative and offensive consumers needs, value and preference determine what is produced and how it is presented, and the lodge society with his culture custom, language, religion and so on cast as preservative influence on the marketing effort .
It should be noted comma however that the marketers action influence society intern by exposing the people to new products, service, and ideas, thereby for better or for worse breaking down the traditional modes of behaviour and fostering new attitudes and habits . Suppliers are middlemen may not make their activities with those of the marketer, thereby possibly creating problems.
The natural resources and climate of a country partly determine the product and services marketing for example the petroleum industry would not exist without oil deposit and would not available in the warm climate, technology is a major agent of change in modern society. It determines how products are developed and manufactured distributed, and promoted.
It also affects how the consumers go about meeting their material needs for example by having cars, consumers can reach more distance marketplace and by having refrigerators they can store perishable food for long period of time marketing intern affects technology, for it is through marketing that the fruits of technology in the form of new products and methods are brought to human needs. Finally, the marketer must abide by the laws and regulations that bind business operations. Uncontrollable variables are important and will be given full treatment in subsequent chapters.
