A government inspection has required your company to upgrade the safety equipment in the manufacturing process of ice creamery. What dimension of the external environment has influenced these upgrades?
Kyla works as an engineer at TechSystems, Inc. She regularly has to work more than 50 hours per week to meet her deadlines. Management at TechSystems runs monthly performance reports, and those employees who do not meet their deadlines and goals are terminated. Management pays little attention to cultural values. Based on this information, which organizational outcome does TechSystems belong in?
This quiz/worksheet centers around the components of the task environment in business and its role within a company. After taking this quiz you'll have a better grasp on what you know as well as what you may want to review further.
To learn more about task environments, the lesson Task Environment: Definition & Components is here to help. This lesson touches on the following objectives:
One of the most popular frameworks for analyzing the task or industry environment is a model developed by Michael Porter known as the five forces model . According to Porter, the ability of a firm to make a profit is influenced by five competitive forces: thethreat of entry by potential competitors, the power of buyers, the power of suppliers, ...
For an example of an industry where incumbents are protected from competition by scaleand brand-based entry barriers, consider the small package express delivery market in theUnited States. Since the late 1980s this market has been dominated by two firms, FedEx andUPS, which together accounted for over 80 percent of the market in the early 2000s. BothFedEx and UPS have spent heavily on advertising to buildtheir brands, which has deterred entry.
A critical thing for managers to understand is how long the excess is likely to persist because that helps define the scale and longevity of the associated opportunity or threat. In other words, managers need to understand how fast the market in which their organization competes adjusts and how quickly demand and supply will be brought back into balance.
The existence of close substitutes is a strong competitive threat because this limits the prices that companies in one industry can charge for their products, and thus industry profitability. If the price of coffee rises too much relative to that of tea or cola, coffee drinkers may switch to those substitutes.