3 February

Topic:Placing organisations in context part 1-internal environment,micro environment

      This week, we concentrate on another vital context about organisations. Environment is the surroundings or conditions in which a person,animal,or plant lives or operates.The organisations' environment as one of important parts, including a lot of different factors which effect or decide the development of organisations. Now I will talk about two parts of this context in detail,one is internal environment and the other is micro environment.

       The internal environment is regarded as a major contextual feature,which consists of elements within the organisation such as its  technology,structure or business processes.This kind of environment should be pay attention because of its importance.The world's leading manufacturer of mobile phones,named Nokia,is one of very important examples to prove this opinion.It success depends on many factors like its abilities,but its advantageous internal environment,such as extensive consumers in the mobile phone market,experienced managers,professional technology and so on,also provides a positive support for its development.Obviously,beneficial and steady internal environment can offer many platforms for developing and ensure the organisation has strong power to be supported.

        On the other hand,the competitive environment,sometimes known as the micro-environment,is the industry-specific environment comprising the organisation's customers,suppliers and competitors.Organisations and managers should have a correct attitude to treat it.It gives them not only challenge but also opportunity.There is a useful tool,which is divided into five points,helping people analyse the micro environment clearly.Buyers,competitors, potential entrants,substitutes and suppliers are regarded as five significant forces.All of them influence organisations commonly,expect the pressure,the micro environment also can make organisations become better and have stronger competitive power.In addition,let us talk about the most important force among them.In fact,it depends on the industry.Different industry has different important force need to be focused on and also has its own way to manage.

         Although the internal environment and competitive environment are not the whole environment which have important influences for organisations,they are essential and inevitable. To sum up,master these environments clearly and have a positive attitude to treat as well as deal with,really can help organisations get better development and further perfection.