Analysis Of Micro And Macro Business Environment

Price fixing is illegal under the competition act of 1998. When participants on the same side of the market (such as the big 4 in the UK supermarket sector) agree to sell a service, product or commodity at a fixed price it’s the consumers who must pay while retailers and suppliers reap the benefits. There are extremely heavy penalties for price fixing in the UK You can be fined, disqualified from being a director - or even sent to prison (Business Link No Date).

Have you ever wondered how the goods and services you purchase become available to you, and have you ever wondered how the prices are determined? Even though economics involves many concepts, supply and demand, as well as trade, are among the most important forces in an economy because of their effect on prices, consumer behavior and economic growth.

The market price of a good is determined by both the supply and demand for it. In the world today supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental principles that exists for economics and the backbone of a market economy. Supply is represented by how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good that producers are willing to supply for a certain demand price. What determines this interconnection is how much of a good or service is supplied to the market or otherwise known as the supply relationship or supply schedule which is graphically represented by the supply curve. In demand the schedule is depicted graphically as the demand curve which represents the

Supply and demand regulate the amount of each good produced and the price at which it is sold. It is the conduct of individuals as they work together with one another in aggressive markets. “A market is a group of buyers and sellers of a particular good or service. The buyers, as a group, determine the demand for the product, and the sellers, as a group,

Owning a business, or managing, within a business, can be a challenging process and ultimately effect the success, failure and bottom line. There are many external forces, or environments, that influence decisions that are ultimately made by Board of Directors, executives, supervisors and management teams. This can have an economic effect locally or ultimately have a global reach. Today’s focus is on the differences between the macro and competitive business environments (Jones et al., 2006).

Understanding the fundamental concepts of economics allows us to analyze laws that have a direct bearing on the economy. These laws and theories are essentially the backbone of how economics is used and studied. The law of demand can be expressed by stating that as long as all other factors remain constant, as prices rise, the quantity of demand for that product falls. Conversely, as the price falls, the quantity of demand for that product rises (Colander, 2006, p 91). Price is the tool used that controls how much consumers want based on how much they demand. At any given price a certain quantity of a product is demanded by consumers. As the price decreases, the quantity of the products demanded will increase. This indicates that more individuals demand the good or service as the price is lowered. This can be illustrated using the demand curve. The demand curve is a downward sloping line that illustrates the inversely related relationship of price and quantity demanded.

Identifying influencing factors of a company’s macro-environment helps in the strategic development and management within a company. The macro-environment outlines an industry and the competitive environment as seen in figure 3.1, (Gamble, Peteraf, Thompson, 39). Within the macro-environment there are the political factors, economic conditions, sociocultural forces, technological factors, environment forces, and legal/regulatory factors. All of these factors blanket the habitat an industry and its competition thrive in. Inside the industry and competitive environment there are five factors that influence an individual company. The five factors are suppliers, rival firms, new entrants, buyers, and substitute products. The biggest impact on a company are these five factors. For example, Under Armour focuses on their industry and competitive environment to survive and grow. Their strategy to win over the market share from Nike and Adidas consists of expanding a stable and original brand within record time, taking an innovative approach to their product line-up and brand-name appeal where the market seemed to be barren, and lastly, the company enters in the foreign market early on to establish its brand and influence markets outside of the US.

2. Microeconomics – the branch of economics, which deals with the individual decisions of units of the economy – firms and households, and how their choice determine relative prices of goods and factors or production.

Different market decisions determine how an economy is run. There are several different factors that account for how markets make their decisions, which determines how they function. The theory of markets mostly depends on supply and demand. However, it is key to note that there is a difference in demand/supply and quantity demanded/supplied. A demand is how much the buyer plans to purchase at various markets prices and the quantity demanded is what the buyer actually purchases at a particular price. Supply is the producer or the seller’s plan of the amount the seller will make available at different market prices and the quantity supplied is the actual amount that the seller makes available at a particular market price. It is important to

Microeconomics involves supply and demand in an individual market, individual consumer behavior, and externalities arising from production and consumption; while, macroeconomics involves monetary/fiscal policy, reason for inflation and unemployment, and international trade/ globalization.

The Economy is the backbone to society. There are many factors that operate in, and govern our society’s economical structure. Factors such as scarcity and choice, opportunity cost, marginal analysis, microeconomics, macroeconomics, factors of production, production possibilities, law of increasing opportunity cost, economic systems, circular flow model, money, and economic costs and profits all contribute to what is known as the economy. These properties as well as a few others, work together to influence the economy. Microeconomics and Macroeconomics are two major components. Both of these are broken down into several different components that dictate societal norms and views.

The micro-macro dilemma relates to a variety of circumstances and situations and is essential for numerous decisions daily that people make. This is particularly true for many of the business decisions that organizations make in concerns to marketing.

Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand.

Aggregate Growth Rates. Low or declining aggregate growth rates often weaken the debt-servicing capacity of domestic borrowers and contribute to increasing credit risk. Recessions have preceded many episodes of systemic financial distress.

Consider a market transaction that you have undertaken as a consumer which was notable because it is particularly recent, large or unusual. Analyse this transaction from a micro-economic standpoint.