Because markets are often unpredictable, successful marketing is rather like hitting a moving target. Consumer tastes vary depending on fashions and trends, causing the demand for products to fluctuate with alarming frequency. It is because of this uncertainty that we need to analyse and know as much as we can about customers and markets, and also about our own businesses. Not all marketplace opportunities are real opportunities for every business. Only those which a business can successfully exploit -- those which match its capabilities -- come into this category. The process of analysing marketing opportunities therefore begins with an internal analysis of a business itself- a process which must include not only the specifically market-related aspects of its operations, such as sales and advertising, but also other aspects, such as financial resources, work-related aspects of its operations, such as sales and advertising, but also other aspects, such as financial resources, work-force skills, technology and so on. A useful framework for undertaking this internal analysis is to divide these aspects into four areas: customers, sales, marketing activities and other factors. We must determine who the business's customers are, how many there are and what their requirements are. We must then estimate how many products the business can be expected to sell in order to determine what product development will be required. Product development includes market research, which is vital to ensure that the business's products are fight for the market, and to enable file business to set pricing and discount policies which will maximise sales. Finally, we must examine how all of these factors relate to other aspects of the business that may affect sales levels, such as management and work-force skills and corporate goals. Having carefully analysed these internal factors, it is time to look at the outside world. An external analysis also needs to examine carefully a wide range of areas -- such as legal/political factors economic factors cultural/social factors technology institutions and competition. There may be restrictions on the production or sale of particular products: for example, the age restrictions that exist in many countries on the sale of alcohol and tobacco will obviously influence the size of the market for these products. Rising or falling interest rates affect people's disposable income, and may alter demand and therefore market size. Development of the society and its population, and how people's requirements will be affected, must also be considered. New technologies may affect both people's expectations and other products that are likely to become available. Consequently it may be expected that traditional, social and economic institutions will alter over time, so that people may no longer buy, sell and distribute products in traditional ways through wholesalers and retail outlets instead they will order products from home using the latest computer and cable television technology. And lastly,' we must consider any potential competition from other businesses at home or overseas which produce similar products, and whether or not our business would be able to remain profitable even with thhis competition. Identifying the competition is in many respects the most important aspect of an external market analysis and, to be useful, it must be as objective as possible. Many marketers greatly overestimate or underestimate the competition that their business will face from other businesses, especially if they look at the competition from their own standpoint rather than seeing it through the eyes of their customers. In other words, many people identify competitors by looking at apparently similar products, how they are made and what features they have, rather than at the benefits these products have for users and at ways of meeting market needs. With personal computers, for instance, this approach w