The marketing environment consists of the actors and forces that aect a companys capability to operate eectively in providing

products and services to its customers. It is useful to classify these forces into the macro environment and the microenvironment. The macro environment consists of a number of broad forces that aect not only the company but also the other actors in the microenvironment. Traditionally four forcespolitical/legal, economic, social/cultural and technologicalhave been the focus of attention, with the result that the term PEST analysis has been used to describe macro environmental analysis. However, the growing importance of ecological/physical environmental forces on companies has led to the acronym being expanded to PEEST analysis. The microenvironment consists of the actors in the rms immediate environment that aect its capabilities to operate eectively in its chosen markets. The key actors are customers, competitors, distributors and suppliers. The macro- and microenvironments shape the character of the opportunities and threats facing a company and are largely uncontrollable.