第二章终于完结了呜呜呜，在这一章中主要讲到了公司如何通过分析大环境（general environmental）和产业环境（industrial environment），波特窝里模型，以及分析竞争对手来掌握市场动态，明天开启第三章internal environment
1. Why is it important for a firmto study and understand the external environment?
The firm’s external environment is challenging and complex.Because of the external environment’s effect on performance, the firm mustdevelop the skills required to identify opportunities and threats existing inthat environment.
2. What are the differences between the general environment and the industry environment? Why are these differences important?（存疑）
General environment: elements in the broader society thataffect industries and their firms
Industry environment: factors that influence a firm, itscompetitive actions and responses, and the industry’s profit potential.
Because the differences result in different dimentions ofanalyzing the two environments
3.What is the externalenvironmental anlysis process(four steps)? What does the firm want to learnwhen using these process?
Scanning, monitoring, forecasting, assessing
To cope with often ambiguous and incomplete environmentaldata and to increase understanding of the general environment and identifyopportunities and threats.
4.What are the six segments ofthe general environment? Explain the differences among them.
Demographic segment: focus on population, often analyzed onglobal basis
Econimic segment: focus on the nature and direction ofeconomy, often analyzed on national basis.
Political/legal segment: focus on laws and regulations,study the relationship of governments and companies.
Sociocultural segment: focus on society’s attitudes andcultural values, which often drive other segments and changes.
Technological segment: focus on new knowledge and theapplication of these knowledge.
Global segment: focus on factors of global market, such as internationalpolitical events, critical cultural and institutional characteristics.
5.How do the five forces of competition in an industry affect its profit potential? Explain.
Threat of new entrants: bring additional productioncapacity, keen on gaining a large market share
Bargaining power of suppliers: increasing prices or reducingquality
Bargaining power of buyers: they bargain for higherquality, greater levels of service and lower prices, encourage competitivebattles among the industry firms.
Threat of substitute products: if the switching costs arelow and the substitute product’s price is lower and its quality is equal to orlower than the existing products, the existing products will lose customers.
Intensity of rivalry aming competitors: with the purpose ofcompeting with other companies in the industry, a company need to search forbetter resources, develop better capabilities, and provide customers with lowerprice, better service.
6.What is a strategic group? Ofwhat value is knowledge of the firm’s strategic group in formulating that firm’sstrategy?
A strategic group is a set of firms emphasizing similarstrategic dimentions to use a similar strategy.
Through understanding and analyzing the competitors in thestrategic group can help the firm to formulate and implement an appropriatestrategy, such as focusing on different factors to avoid directly competeagainst each other ,or providing better services that its rival doesn’t providecurrently.
7. What is the importance ofcollecting and interpreting data and information about competitors? Whatpractices should a firm use to gather competitor intelligence and why?
These data and information helps the firm to understand,interpret and predict its competitors’ actions and responses, clearly contributingto the firm’s ability to compete successfully within the industry.
