After watching the recorded discussion, answer the following questions:

1. Why is it important for a firm to study and understand the external environment?

 It is important to study and understand the external environment because a firm’s

competitive actions and responses are influenced by this. To earn above average returns,
the firm must be knowledgeable of the external environment so that they will know the
appropriate competition action and responses they will make enable to have the
competitive advantage

2. What are the differences between the general environment and the industry environment?
Why are these differences important?

 General environment is composed of dimensions in the broader society, there are

segments in the general environment and the firms can't control it. On the other hand,
industry environment is the set of factors that directly influences a firm and its
competitive actions and response. Their differences are important because they
complement each other. Together, they both determine the profitability of the
business that makes them have the choices for competitive actions and responses.

3. What is the external environment analysis process (four parts)? What does the firm want
to learn when using this process?

 The four external environment analysis processes are scanning, monitoring, forecasting
and assessing. With the environment analysis process the firm will be able to scan,
monitor, forecast, and assess the elements in each segment to predict their effects on
it. Effective scanning, monitoring, forecasting, and assessing are vital to the firm’s
efforts to recognize and evaluate opportunities and threats. The firm simply wants to
identify threats and opportunities.

4. What are the seven segments of the general environment? Explain the differences among
them.
 • The seven segments of the general environment are demographic, economic,
political/legal, sociocultural, technological, global and lastly the sustainable physical
environment. Their differences are the parts in which they focused on, namely;
• The demographic segment is concerned with a population’s size, age structure,
geographic distribution, ethnic mix, and income distribution
• The economic environment refers to the nature and direction of the economy in which
a firm competes or may compete.

• The political/legal segment is the arena in which organizations and interest groups
compete for attention, resources, and a voice in overseeing the body of laws and
regulations guiding interactions among nations as well as between firms and various
local governmental agencies.
• The sociocultural segment is concerned with a society’s attitudes and cultural values.
• The technological segment includes the institutions and activities involved in creating
new knowledge and translating that knowledge into new outputs, products, processes,
and materials.
• The global segment includes relevant new global markets, existing markets that are
changing, important international political events, and critical cultural and
institutional characteristics of global markets.
• The sustainable physical environment segment refers to potential and actual changes
in the physical environment and business practices that are intended to positively
respond to those changes with the intent of creating a sustainable environment.

5. How do the five forces of competition in an industry affect its profitability potential?
Explain.

• Threat of New Entrants - new entrants can threaten the market share of existing
competitors. One reason new entrants pose such a threat is that they bring additional
production capacity.
• Bargaining power of suppliers – Increasing prices and reducing the quality of their
products are potential means suppliers use to exert power over firms competing within an
industry. If a firm is unable to recover cost increases by its suppliers through its own
pricing structure, its profitability is reduced by its suppliers’ actions.
 • Bargaining power of buyers - buyers (customers of an industry or a firm) want to buy
products at the lowest possible price— the point at which the industry earns the lowest
acceptable rate of return on its invested capital.
• Threat of substitute products - product substitutes present a strong threat to a firm when
customers face few if any switching costs and when the substitute product’s price is lower
or its quality and performance capabilities are equal to or greater than those of the
competing product.
• Intensity of Rivalry among Competitors - Competitive rivalry intensifies when a firm is
challenged by a competitor’s actions or when a company recognizes an opportunity to
improve its market position and if not focused on might lead to decline in profitability.

6. What is a strategic group? Of what value is knowledge of the firm's strategic group in
formulating that firm's strategy?

• A strategic group is a set of firms emphasizing similar strategic dimensions and using a
similar strategy.
• Strategic groups can be useful for analyzing an industry’s competitive structure. Such
analyses can be helpful in diagnosing competition, positioning, and the profitability of
firms competing within an industry. Using strategic groups to understand an industry’s
competitive structure requires the firm to plot companies’ competitive actions and
responses along strategic dimensions such as pricing decisions, product quality,
distribution channels, and so forth.

7. What is the importance of collecting and interpreting data and information about
competitors? What practices should a firm use to gather competitor intelligence and why?

• Understanding competitors’ actions and responses clearly contributes to the firm’s ability
to compete successfully within the industry. Executives often fail to analyze competitors’
possible reactions to competitive actions their firm takes, placing their firm at a potential
competitive disadvantage as a result. Additionally, firms must follow relevant laws and
regulations as well as carefully articulated ethical guidelines.
MINI CASE
Read the Mini Case - The Informal Economy: What It Is and Why It Is Important? (Page 69-70)
then answer the following CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.

1. What are the implications of the informal economy for firms that operate only in the
formal economy?

• Cost disadvantage – aside from cost of regulations, in formal economy, firms must pay
taxes. While in the informal economy, they do not pay government fees or taxes, are not
observed, and are unregulated in a legal and social environment.
• The informal economy poses threats and opportunities for companies in the formal
economy. Also, survival in an ever-changing market has another implication as both
formal and informal economies compete for market change by producing the required
products.

2. When firms consider analyzing their competition, should they include firms in the informal
economy? Please explain why or why not.

 When firms consider analyzing their competition, they should include firms in the informal
economy. This is because firms in the informal economy serve a small market with a low
cost of entry. Therefore, the firms should analyze the productivity and cost of admission
to the conventional sector of the firms in the informal economy.

3. What opportunities does the informal economy present to firms operating in the formal
economy?

• The informal economy firms has different opportunities that they can present to formal
economy firms to improve their ways and to know what is needed to be changed to adapt
to the needs of the customers.
• human capital – compared to formal economy there are many human force or workforce
in the informal economy.

4. What threats does the informal economy present to firms operating in the formal economy?
• The threat that the informal economy is the cost advantage when competing against
formal economy firms because they do not pay taxes or incur the costs of regulations.
• Additionally, because of the low barrier, many entrepreneurs dwell first in the informal
economy.

5. How do firms operating in the formal economy identify and analyze the parts of the
informal economy relevant to their strategies?

• Firms operating in the formal economy can then strategize and find ways to better meet
their needs.
• Firms operating in the formal economy has the opportunity to identify and analyze the
needs of customers that informal economy firms are satisfying.