Business Environment Reflection

Kierra Laird

Busi 1200

09/26/2012

The three general environment forces I chose were Economic, Technological and Sociocultural.

Economic – The example I chose for this force was an article called “At Abercrombie & Fitch, Sex No Longer Sells”. Abercrombie & Fitch lost a huge amount of sales in Europe as well as in the U.S., and they lost a third of their market share. Abercrombie blames the economy because people can no longer afford a pair of $70 jeans; especially when customers can buy a similar pair of jeans for only $40. Also, their brand consultants say they have failed to change with the times. Teenagers are no longer interested in “half-naked models and blaring, dimly lit stores.” (Maheshwari, 2012) Although Abercrombie profited $1 million in sales from their new store in Hong Kong, they will soon make some changes in order to appeal to the new individual styles of today’s teens.

Technological – The example I chose for this force was an article called “The Doctor Will Skype You Now.” In this article people in Georgia decided to pick up on technology and found a new way to visit their doctors by video chatting, which they call telemedicine. This started in 2005 when John Oxendine, who was then Georgia's insurance commissioner, helped obtain $11.5 million grant from insurer WellPoint. With the money they were able to set up telemedicine systems in 40 hospitals and clinics. Since there are 1.9 million people in Georgia and only a few doctors, telemedicine connects patients with specialist of all varieties. "The doctor can see in the ear, diagnose an ear infection, call the pharmacy locally, and then the pharmacy delivers the medicine," says Jeffrey Kesler, Tele-Health's chief operations officer. "Within basically 30 minutes the child is seen, assessed, diagnosed, and treated, without the child and parents having to take half a day to drive to see the pediatrician." (Flinn)

Sociocultural – The example I chose for this force was an article called...