the easier it will be to communicate with them. If you have a broad customer base, you might need to split your customers into groups (segmentation). Understanding your competitors Internal environment The internal marketing environment includes factors that the business can directly influence. This can include: The organisational structure The strengths and weaknesses of a department Financial stability and resources Staff morale Spare production capacity Client base Pricing structure Selling channels Staff skills Identifying opportunities in the marketing environment Once you have completed the internal and external environmental audit, you can summarise your findings using a SWOT analysis which can be used to make key decisions. SWOT analysis A ' SWO T analysis' is a useful way of summarizing the results of the environmental audit and presenting the current status of a business. SWOT simply stands for the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats which have emerged from examining the macro, micro and internal marketing environments. For example, here is a SWOT analysis for a fictional electric car manufacturer Strengths Our electric motors are cheap to produce and maintenance free Charge time is class leading Production capacity can be increased R&D department is class leading Weaknesses Batteries are heavy, slow to charge and provide limited mileage Dealer network is small Customer trust in the segment is low Market is highly competitive Opportunities Government grants are available Road tax breaks for electric cars Market is growing rapidly Battery technology is evolving Threats Tesla has secured a large government grant The big players