Introduction

“If there is anything that is stead fast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable, and those organizations who do not keep up with change will become unstable, with long-term survivability in question”   

      

There are things, events, or situations that occur that affect the way a business operates, either in a positive or negative way. These things, situations, or events that occur that affect a business in either a positive or negative way are called "driving forces or environmental factors."

There are two kinds of driving forces; Internal driving forces, and external driving forces. Internal driving forces are those kinds of things, situations, or events that occur inside the business, and are generally under the control of the company. Examples are as follows:
· organization of machinery and equipment,
· technological capacity,
· organizational culture,
· management systems,
· financial management
· employee morale. 

External driving forces are those kinds of things, situation, or events that occur outside of the company and are by and large beyond the control of the company.

Examples of external driving forces might be, the company itself, the economy, demographics, competition, political interference, etc. Whether they are internal or external driving forces, one thing is certain for both. Change will occur! A company must be cognizant of these changes, flexible, and willing to respond to them in an appropriate way. 
In order for a business to succeed and gain the competitive edge, the business must know what changes are indeed occurring, and what changes might be coming up in the future. I guess one  might call this forecasting. Thus, critical to the business is what we call "informational resources."

Some examples of critical information might include the following:

·         Competition (what are they doing?)

·         Customer behavior (needs, wants, and desires)

·         Industry out  look (local, national, global)

·         Demographics (the change populations, there density, etc.)

·         Economy (are we peaking, or moving negatively)

·         Political movements and/or interference

·         Social environment

·         Technological changes

·         General environmental changes

The company

In designing marketing plans, marketing management should take other company groups, such as top management, finance, research and development (R&D), purchasing, manufacturing and accounting, into consideration. All these interrelated groups form the internal environment . Top management sets the company’s mission, objectives, broad strategies and policies. Marketing managers make decisions within the plans made by top management.

Marketing managers must also work closely with other company departments. Finance is concerned with finding and using funds to carry out the marketing plan. The R&D department focuses on the  problems of designing safe and attractive products. Purchasing worries about getting supplies and materials, whereas Operations is responsible for producing the desired quality and quantity of products. Accounting has to measure revenues and costs to help marketing know how well it is achieving its objectives. Together, all of these departments have an impact on the marketing department’s plans and actions. Under the marketing concept, all of these functions must ‘think customer’ and they should work in harmony to provide superior customer value and satisfaction.

Suppliers

Suppliers also play a vital role in an organization's microenvironment. The relationship between suppliers and organizations are built on a solid foundation of value.  The growth and the vision of the organization depend heavily on the values that the suppliers can offer. Suppliers are an important link in the company’s overall customer value delivery system. They provide the resources needed by the company to produce its goods and services. Supplier developments can seriously affect marketing. Marketing managers must watch supply availability – supply shortages or delays, labor strikes and other events can cost sales in the short run and damage customer satisfaction in the long run.  Rising supply costs may force price increases   that can harm the company’s sales volume.  The extent to which organizations and suppliers work together toward their respective or common goals is defined as Joint action. In this Joint, the supplier contribute significantly in provides sources of competitive advantages towards the organizations against other competitors as well as save cost and achieve efficiency for the organization.

It is important that the organization has a high communication frequency and information sharing with its suppliers. A good frequent contact and information sharing helps routine issues such as product availability, order handling and delivery issues and reduce uncertainty. When the organization has frequent communication with it's suppliers, it can give the supplier the chance for operational improvements and product development. This can indirectly help the organization because when the advice is accepted. Few examples are as follows:

1.    In 2000 Ford's image was damaged when tyres on its Explorer vehicles started exploding. These tyres were produced by Bridgestone and the supplier ended up re-calling over 6.5 million tyres.  

   

 2. In 2007 Sony batteries in several Dell laptops caught fire which caused a terrible public relations issue for the computer manufacturer and led to over 4 million laptop batteries being recalled.