Oxfam Marketing Analysis

The charitable organisation chosen in this assignment is Oxfam international organisation. Oxfam standing for Oxford Committee for Famine Relief was founded in Britain in 1942 by a group who ran campaigns for food supplies to send for starving women and children in ….. (Oxfam, 2012)

In 1955, the Oxfam international charitable organisation was formed by a group of 17 independent non- government organisations in 94 countries with the aim to reduce the poverty and injustice.

This assignment will discuss various activities of what Oxfam does and how this organisation raise money including fundraising campaign, the awareness programs, organizing inspirational events, etc. running shops which Oxfam has been doing to get money and implement 2 important objectives of the organisations including fighting poverty and fighting for right. Also, this assignment will explain various market and environmental factors which affect the organisation present and future direction. These factors include micro environment and macro environment. In an organization, marketing department is often considered as one of primely important departments to contribute to an organisation’s success. So, the roles and duties of marketing staffs cannot be denied to success of the department and the organization. This assignment will also discuss about the role play by the marketing staffs of The Oxfam international charitable organization.

ANALYSIS

The organisation’s activities

Oxfam’s objectives is fighting poverty and for human rights, in more specific term, injustice in all over the world. The organization has worked world-wide to enable people to act for their rights and manage for their own lives. They believe that everyone has the right to access the essentials of life such as food, clean water, shelter, healthcare, sanitation, education, and livelihood to support themselves, their families and the society. Also, everyone has the right to live free from injustice such as gender injustice, oppression, human violence.

So, how does Oxfam accomplish its aims ? The organization has been run many activities including running fundraising campaign, entertainment event, to get money from the donors as well as run many shops selling donated items from donors or products from companies. They will use all the money to support poor and needy people and victims of injustice, so that, these people can eliminate their difficulties and have better life. Firstly, Oxfam believes that poverty is not inevitable , however, it is a real challenge to overcome (Oxfam). To tackle this challenge, Oxfam has been focusing on 2 important areas which are economic justice and Essential services. With economic justice, Oxfam Charitable organization aim is that more men and women will realize their right to secure and durable livelihoods (OXFAM INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC PLAN 2007-2012). To achieve this aim, Oxfam charitable organization works together with many allies and partners in all over the world to accomplish 3 things which are making agriculture work, achieving fairer trade rules, and decreasing the impacts of climate change. They make more agriculture work for poor farmers and labors living in susceptible circumstances to reduce the economic differences among people. They also work to make sure farmers in poor countries have fair trade in world trade. By this activity, farmers in poor countries can access to the big fair trade zone such as EU agricultural markets. For example, Oxfam urges EU to allow Arab countries to fully access to EU agricultural markets while keeping a certain level of protection to their rural development needs (Euro-Med: Seeds of a raw deal?). Oxfam, in addition, supports vulnerable people, especially in agriculture, to adapt climate change. With essential services, the target of Oxfam is that people in poor condition, especially women and girls realize their rights to accessible and affordable essentials of life such as food , clean water, shelter, healthcare, sanitation, education. This activity of Oxfam is focusing on demanding national governments to perform their responsibilities as well as their commitments in delivery of these essentials, supporting civil society organizations to push these governments to take their responsibilities in supplying these essentials, and making sure that rich countries and international associations will donate more funds as well as commit their promise on aid and debt reduction.

Secondly, besides fighting poverty, Oxfam is also fighting injustice, especially gender injustice. Oxfam believes that Poverty often happen when people’s basic rights are violated. So that, fighting injustice is one of many ways to fight poverty (Oxfam, 2012).

In more specific area, Oxfam fight gender injustice. The goal of Oxfam in this activity is to help more women attain power in their lives, live their lives without violence, and have the right to make decisions. This activity aims to change women attitudes, thinking and beliefs about relation of men and women in order to reduce the rate of violence to women as well as eliminate the gender differences in the work place . This activity supports women to engage more activities, access to leadership at all levels and have the rights to make decisions, so that, they can gain their power over and manage their own lives.

Oxfam is known as one of the top charitable organizations in UK as well as around the world. Like other charitable organizations, Oxfam have to do fundraising to get money for activities that they are doing for people and it has to comply to UK legal principles and international laws and regulations for charitable organizations as well.

There are many activities which Oxfam have been conducting to raise funds for the organization. There are 2 types of activities that the organization, specifically members of the organization, perform to raise money, and they are direct and indirect activities. First of all, indirect activities of a charitable organization would include activities such as ……………………………………

Influences of Market and Environment Factors to the Organization.

In the 21st century, Profit organizations and Non-for-profit or charitable organizations have to face many challenges. The rapid changes of the economy environment in national and international sphere require these organizations re-formulate and implement new strategies, objectives to meet new challenges. Together with formulate the strategies, objective, the organizations themselves need to make changes to enjoy the competitive advantage from other competitors. As a charitable organization, Oxfam has to face with some changes and challenges that they never faced in the past which are climate change and its consequences, famines and crises of the prices, global financial crises, limitation of energy, proliferation of weapons, urbanization, shortages of natural resources, etc (Oxfam, 2012) . http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/what/purpose-and-beliefs

To adapt these changes, Oxfam has to figure out what market and environment factors and forces may influence on their strategies, objective and future direction. There forces can be classified into 2 types which are micro environment and macro environment (Jobber, 2001).

The micro environment consisting of factors such as suppliers, customers, distributions and competitors may directly influence the organisation’s ability to manage to supply their products and services to their selected markets. The macro environment includes various broader forces which not only affect the organization itself but also all factors in the micro environment. These factors in macro environment consist 6 key groups under demographic environment, economic environment, technological, political-legal, and social-cultural environment ( Kotler, …). While the micro environment factors can be managed and controlled by the organisation, the macro environment factors are uncontrollable. (Kotler, ). There are 2 types of approaches which are undertaken by Oxfam to analysis the micro or internal environment and macro or external environment market environment. They are PEST analysis and SWOT analysis.

PEST ANALYSIS ; SWOT ANALYSIS

To analyse the macro environment, it is helpful to indentify all the factors which may affect the organisation’s demand level, supply level, and cost (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1991??). kotler (1998) claims that PEST analysis is a tool which is very helpful for an organization to understand their position in the market, the stage of their business like growth or decline. Together with SWOT analysis, an organization can identify their strengths, weakness, potential opportunities or threads. So that, the organization can develop plan, strategy and direction for operation properly.

The marketing of the charitable organization is quite different from marketing of any other profit organizations. While the profit organization can earn the profits by their business by hiring and paying their staffs to achieve the target, the charitable organization keeps their jobs going by getting the donations from donors and supports from volunteers. The Oxfam charitable organization run their all activities not for profit maximization, but more on collecting the money which they get and helps people who are in poverty and need help such as poor farmers, children, women, illiterate, etc. Like other profit and not-for-profit organization, Oxfam charitable organization is affected by market and environment forces. Firstly, economic factor may be the first factor which affects the Oxfam’s income in particular period obviously because the salary and income of common donors may be affected by the economic conditions such as inflation, high rate of unemployment. The changes of economic condition also affect the selling of products of many of Oxfam’s shops (Oxfam, 2004?) . Secondly, Oxfam charitable organization is affected by the legal-political environment which varies from country to country. As a international organization, Oxfam affiliates are all over the world. All their activities have to comply with each country’s laws, regulations, legal framework to avoid the illegal form in collecting donations which could affect their image in the future. For example, in UK, all the activities and operations of charitable organizations have to follow the regulations of  the Charities Act, 2006 (???) which requires the organization keep the annual records, prepare annual account and publish to public on request. So, the Oxfam organization in UK has to follow this regulation strictly in keeping all record about the income, expenditure from fundraising campaign as well as shop selling activities.

PHILOSOPHIES

Known as one of significant charitable firms in the world, Oxfam’s marketing concept can be considered as Societal marketing concept. The firm with societial marketing concept manages their marketing strategy in the way that emphasizes on determining and satisfying the needs, wants and interests of target market more efficiently and effectively than competitor. of poor people and people living in poverty and

SEGMENTATION; TARGETING; POSITIONING

When an organization knows about their target audience, they know everything and it is much easier for them to able to communicate with their target audience. There are many factors that an organization should know about target audience, which can be age, gender, income, types of products they use, programs they watch, etc. The target market of Oxfam charitable organization is the people in poor condition and needs assistances from all areas, regions, religions, etc in all over the world. The target market of the organization also emphasizes on people who are living in condition of injustice, specially women and girls.

http://www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.nz/about/oxfam

http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/what/purpose-and-beliefs

http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/why

http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/accountability/strategic-plan