External Marketing Analysis Report for Adobe

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External Marketing Analysis Report for Adobe

Mercer Margin IV

Claudine Douglas, Lynne Green, Carlton Hardee, Robert Anderson

                Mercer University – Stetson School of Business and Economics

May 9, 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Executive Summary           ………………………………………    3

• Business Description          ……………………………………...     4

• External Market                  ……………………………………...     4

• Competition                        ………………………………………    7

• Target the World                …..…………………………………..     9

• SWOT                                    ………………………………………….      11

• Conclusion                         ………………………………………      15

• References                         ………………………………………       17

Executive Summary

Adobe Systems, Inc. is a NASDAQ traded fortune 1000 company that was founded in 1982 by Charles M. Geschke and John E. Warnock. Adobe is seeking to revolutionize the world through enhancing user’s digital experiences.  Adobe has been a leader in digital media for more than three decades and recently has emerged as a leader in digital marketing. Adobe is pushing the envelope by recently releasing two new Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions.  One is focused on marketing driving digital transformation at the world’s largest companies, and the other is moving beyond the marketing department and transforming how enterprises organize and engage with customers across every point of touch. Adobe is seeking to further its foothold in the growing digital market. The company is facing increasing competition in the digital marketing arena and intends to further diversify its offerings by expanding its product portfolio across geographies. In line with this objective, the company offered its Creative Cloud product for subscription rather than license, for enhanced customer reach through its website www.adobe.com. This will hopefully result in accelerated growth of their business.

An external marketing analysis and evaluation of the company’s internal strengths, weakness, external opportunities and threats served as the foundation for this report. In addition to analyzing the internal and external conditions of the company, we will review and provide a brief analysis of Adobe’s target market characteristics and how well they are aligning themselves with their targeted audience.  Lastly, we will summarize our findings and provide recommendations on the how Adobe can enhance its marketing efforts to help meet and exceed its short and long term growth goals.

Business Description

Adobe Systems, Inc. is a global software and digital marketing company based in San Jose, California. Adobe is the global leader in digital marketing and digital media solutions operating its business through three segments: Digital Marketing, Digital Media, and Print/Publishing. The digital marketing segment offers various solutions, including analytics, social marketing, targeting, media optimization, digital experience management and cross-channel campaign management. It also offers premium video delivery and monetization. The digital media segment offers creative cloud services, which allows members to download and install the latest versions of products such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Adobe InDesign, as well as utilize other tools, such as Adobe Acrobat. Lastly, the print and publishing segment offers products and services for eLearning solutions, technical document publishing, web application development and printing.

In 2014 Adobe had sales of $4.15 billion dollars, with approximately half of its revenue generated outside of the United States. Adobe has more than 12,000 employees worldwide with a mission to be the premier provider of products and services in the information age for professional publishing solutions, business publishing solutions, document solutions, and digital imaging solutions. The company is achieving and maintaining an above-average return on investment for shareholders while being a good corporate citizen where they produce, sell and service its products.

External Market

While looking at Adobe, it’s important to look at the external factors that influence their market.  As a software and application company they have a broad range of product offerings that they share world-wide.  Holistically, they are looking at the global markets of over 3 billion computer internet users for their document and video players.  They are seeking to capture market share with 28 million U.S. small businesses and electronically connected businesses worldwide which could number in the hundreds of millions with publishing and marketing products.  They are also seeking to connect with the professional and amateur photographers as well as those who download pictures to the internet and social media, which is about 220 thousand per minute with their digital media editing software and suites.  All of these demographics are increasing rapidly as the number of computer users increases at a logarithmic pace.  The age range of their demographics is anywhere from 14 to 90, but they are continuing to target medium to large businesses and digital marketing as their sweet spot.  

Another external market factor that influences a company’s market strategy is the economic condition of the targeted demographic.  Right now the U.S. economy is starting to warm-up.  A large part of that is fueled by technology stocks. Digital media and digital marketing are exploding in the U.S. business scene, which makes up over half of Adobe’s business.  It’s even happening personally as new apps and programs make digital marketing and media a much more viable area then they have been in the past.  However, the rest of the world’s economy is slumping.  China, Japan and Europe are all on the ropes, however digital media, marketing and e-commerce remain hot.  China’s tech giant Alibaba recently spent millions investing in Snapchat and indicators throughout the world show that web and application connectivity are growing, even in shrinking economies. Adobe has strategically placed itself in the market in order to capitalize on this with its Marketing Cloud product line.