MACRO & MICRO ENVIRONMENTS Macroenvironment consists of broad environmental issues that may affect business performance. These are: · Political/legal, · Economic, · Ecological/physical, · Social/cultural and · Technological forces. Auditing these issues is known by the acronym PEEST analysis. The Microenvironment consists of the actors in the firm's immediate environment that affect its capabilities to operate effectively in its chosen markets. The key actors are · Customers, · Distributors, · Suppliers and · Competitors. Micro environmental analysis consists of market analysis, which involves the statistical analysis of market size, growth rates and change trends and market analysis of buyer behaviour (how they rate competitive offerings, and had a segment) MACROENVIRONMENT 1. Political/legal: EU and national laws; codes of practice 2. Economic: economic growth; unemployment; interest and exchange rates; global economic trends (e.g. the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies) 3. Ecological/physical environment: global warming; pollution; energy and other scarce resources; environmentally friendly ingredients and components; recycling and non-wasteful packaging 4. Social/cultural: changes in the world population; age distribution and household structure; attitude and lifestyle changes; subcultures within and across national boundaries; consumerism 5. Technological: new product and process technologies; new materials MICROENVIRONMENT Market: size; growth rates; trends Customers: who they are, their choice criteria, how, when and where they buy; how they rate us vis-à -vis the competition on product, promotion, price and distribution; how customers group (market segmentation), and what benefits each group seeks; trends Competitors: who are the major competitors (actual and potential); their objectives and strategies; strengths and weaknesses; size, market share and profitability; entry barriers to new competitors; trends Distributors: channel attractiveness; distributor decision-making unit, decision- making process and choice criteria; strengths and weaknesses; power changes; physical distribution methods; trends Suppliers: who they are and location; strengths and weaknesses; power changes; trends