Micro Environmental Factors That Affect Businesses
Whilst marketers have direct control of their marketing mix formulation and implementation, there
are a number of factors in the micro and macro environment that are beyond the marketer’s direct
control.
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Micro Environmental Factors that Affect Businesses
Introduction
Marketer are charged with the responsibility of formulating and executing business
strategies that are aimed at running the general business operations (Roth, 2014). Even though
marketers do have direct control of the marketing mix formulation and application, there are a
few factors in the micro environment that are past the marketer’s direct control. The
microenvironment entails those available resources that directly affect individuals and the
business (Roth, 2014). These factors together will either make the business or break it depending
on how they are managed. There are basically six micro environmental factors in a business
environment. These include customers, competitors, the media and the general public,
employees, investors and suppliers (Roth, 2014). This paper intends to look at only three of these
factors and these will be the customers, competitors and the suppliers. They will be discussed
into greater details and then look into how they affect the general business operations.
Competitors
There are certain things making up the competitive environment that any particular firm
has to take a keen note of. There is no any particular company that enjoy monopoly regardless of
its size. A company will be faced with varied forms of competition in the original world of
business. A company’s product will most likely experience competition from products that are
made by other companies. This is type of competition is referred to as brand competition and it
does exist in every durable product market (Sørensen and Nanda, 2010). Another form of
competition is called the product form competition. This is a form of competition that arises
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when customers consider the composition of products from different companies that are designed
to perform the same function.
Scholars have advised that a company will be able to grasp a full range of competition by
taking the buyer’s viewpoint. It has to consider the opinion of the buyer regarding that which
ultimately lead to the purchase of the product. Tracing the consumer attitude will therefore help
in retaining the market share for any particular firm.
Customers
There is just one valid purpose for any given business and that is creation of customers
(Giesler and Veresiu, 2012). The aim of the business enterprise is to make profits by heeding to
the customers’ demands. It is driven by the urge to make profits and not actually to make more
sales for its sake. It is has to this day been established that the beginning and end of any
marketing firm is marked by customers.
According to Giesler and Veresiu (2012)A business enterprise has to find customers to
purchase its products for it to be successful. This proves the point that the customer is the most
essential component of the micro environment of a business. Product sales will be mainly
determined by the extent of consumer satisfaction. Those business firms that are considered to be
serious have developed systems that monitor customer attitude and consumer satisfaction on a
regular basis, owing to the fact that it has been universally accepted today that customer
satisfaction forms the base for the success of any particular company. Ideally, not all customers
fall in the same group, they could be individuals, enterprises, institutions or even the
government. It would be a great idea to have a diverse customer base as this will easily sustain
the demands for the firm’s demands
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Suppliers
The organization could consider availing the needed labor or material in line with its
manufacturing program. It could embrace those purchase policies which offers it more
bargaining power (Sørensen and Nanda, 2010). Firm suppliers and the firm itself form a
relationship that incarnates power equation between the two. This particular equation depends on
the conditions of the industry and the extent of dependency of each of the two entities.
Suppliers could either be individuals or specific business houses. A combination of these
provides those resources required by the firm. The company should thus be ready to develop
specifications, such for prospective suppliers, identify and analyze the suppliers and
subsequently pick out the suppliers who are outstanding when it comes to quality, credit, delivery
reliability, relatively lower costs and warranties. The operations of any given company will be
significantly affected by changes in the supplier’s environment. Companies have recently
developed a trend of lowering the cost of supply and maximizing on the product quality.
Conclusion
Micro environment factors, being factors that are close to the business and having direct
impact on its operations and ultimate success have to be given the attention they deserve. Even if
they are beyond the marketer’s direct control, these factors have to be dealt with in the best way
possible for the better good of the company. The customer being the most important factor in any
profit oriented institution has to be enticed by offering the best quality services and customers.
The company also have to employ strategies that will give it an advantage over its competitors.
Suppliers also have to be chosen by their ability to offer the best quality supplies that would not
scare away the customers in the end and those suppliers that offer prices that will give allowance
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for profits when the final product is sold by the firm. Failure to do these attracts the company’s
downfall.
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References
Giesler, M. and Veresiu, E. (2012) Creating the responsible consumer: moralistic governance
regimes and consumer subjectivity. Journal of Consumer Research 41 (10): 849-867.
Roth, S. (2014) The eye-patch of the beholder. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and
Small Business 22(4): 399-407.
Sørensen, J. and Nanda, R. (2010) Workplace peers and entrepreneurship. Management Science
56 (7): 152-156.
