Manufacturing companies

Secondly, being a developed nation, people have access to all types of sports equipment and facilities such as play fields, stadiums tennis and badminton courts etc (Ellis, 2008). There are a number of other sport equipment manufacturing companies already operating in Australia and are earning a great deal of appreciation from the Australian Population. People do have a craze for sports thus they go and buy equipment in order to take part in sports with professionalism.

Australia is represented by its sportsman in a number of sporting events around the globe from Olympics, to Wimbledon and most importantly the cricket World Cup where Australia has been the defending champion for last so many years.

Apart from the available sporting facilities that are their in Australia the reason that makes Australia a potential market for sports equipment manufacturing companies is that these facilities are used by a large proportion of the Australian population.

From kids to adults and both males and females, all take part in sports and enjoy themselves by going to sports complex, clubs, gyms, stadiums and even in public grounds.

There is a saying that it is not just sports that are played in Australia, but, its sports that make a complete Australian. In the culture and demographic part of the report we will see that how attractive the Australian market is for sports equipment manufacturing company.

In other words, we see that almost from A to Z, each and every sport is played in Australia that is played in any other part of the world that is from Archery to Water polo, Australians have the passion to play all sorts of sports in all mediums.

SWOT ANALYSIS FOR THE COMPANY Analyzing the above information about the sporting environment in Australia, we will now come towards the scope of the company in the country as a new entrant.

Starting with the strengths, from the above information we can see that one for the major strengths for any company in a market is that it has potential customers for its products who are willing to buy the product and use it regardless of the brand. This implies that only when people have interest in a certain commodity only then will they decide between brands in order to buy the product.

Thus for AZ sports, Australian market is a potential market for selling its products because people are more then willing to play sports and for that they are always in pursuit of quality sports equipment (Covelle, 2007). Moreover, its not that the company has to starts its operations all over again and it does not have any past experience in sports equipment production but the company is already serving a huge domestic market back in UK and is already in the manufacturing business with all the expertise already in hand.

The company knows to make quality products and ins and outs of the industry and manufacturing is not basically a barrier of entry for the company. Also, because Australia was first a colony of UK, thus most of the sports that are played in UK are also played in Australia and the company is already producing these goods. For example, cricket bats, safety pads, gloves, badminton rackets, balls, tennis rackets, swimming costumes, football shoes, foot balls and many more.

The company has already developed technology in making these products and thus it won’t find any difficulty in manufacturing these products in Australia. Further more, being a developed nation with a high per capita income, people have the capacity to buy sports equipment quite often that are of quality and branded as well, thus the company does not need to practice a low cost price discrimination for this reason as it might have done in Asian countries especially the South East Asia where people are living below the poverty line.

When we come to the weaknesses, we see that Australia already has a developed market for sports equipment where a number of other leading global brands have already strengthened their base and have captured a large number of market share (Plunkette, 2006). They are already running their marketing campaigns to influence the decision making process of consumers and by now have made loyal brands. In such a competitive market structure, a new company which is going to the global for the first time might need a lot of expertise and experience for a company where AZ sports lacks.

Creating brand awareness in a new market is also very difficult for this company because up till now it has only marketed in its own country and no one knows about the company worldwide, therefore being a new brad for the international stage, the company will face difficulties in creating a customer base. When we come to the equipments, a lot of professional athletes and players are seen using the products of the brands already present in the market which does influence the decision making of the consumers quite a lot, whereas except for UK, people have never seen any of their athletes using AZ in any sporting event.

Before launching the products, the company will also have to analyze the market for sporting goods in order to analyze what are the products that most of the population buys in population, of what brand do they buy, why that specific brand and lastly the company will have to see whether the products offered by the company has that attractive factor for customers to switch over or not.