Scanning for market threats

– This paper seeks to focus more attention on market threat variables, their role in contributing to market risk and how to anticipate them., – Selected marketing and economics variables are considered in the context of their potentially dangerous or destructive impacts on business markets. Numerous “real world” examples are used to demonstrate the negative effects of these variables., – A matrix based on market information levels and lead times is introduced to demonstrate how the threat variables can be classified in terms of their potential risk to the business marketer. The threat variables can then be located on the risk matrix and the degree of their potential danger can be defined., – The discussion should hopefully be of use to both students and practitioners. An “early warning” template is provided to help identify specific variables and their risk potential so that scanning efforts can be prioritized according to the most likely sources of market threats.