In today's global world, it is becoming increasingly important that companies are aware of not only the internal factors that they can control, but also of the uncontrollable external factors. It is also crucial that marketers keep in mind the effects of not only domestic forces, but also international ones as well. Even back in 1977, Halfhill (1977) observed that as more companies start to use a multinational approach in business, the international marketing approach should be used. This means that companies should be aware of external environmental factors, including those external to the country in which they are based. According to Yüksel (2012), an effective method to determine the macro-environmental effects on a company and the company's ability to take these conditions and choose an appropriate direction is the PESTEL analysis (Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technological, Environmental, Legal). To utilize this tool even further, one can apply PESTEL and the effects of the macro-environment to their business and evaluate the apparent or implicit effects on the marketing mix. Companies such as Qantas, an Australian airline company could greatly benefit from the application of PESTEL analysis. After a huge financial loss in 2011 and a huge decline in market share forcing a major structural change and the cut of 1000 jobs (Gelineau 2011), Qantas needs to observe the effects the macro-environmental effects on its marketing mix. By doing so, it will gain more insight towards making a decision of majority ownership. It must be noted, that while an in depth analysis of each of the PESTEL macro-environmental factors is important, this report will take a broad approach, analysing the political, socio-cultural, technological and legal factors in relation to the marketing mix of Qantas.

|Political Factors Firstly, it is important that marketer's realise the