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|94 PART 2 Understanding the Marketplace and Customer Value

Objective Outline

OBJECTIVE 1 Describe the environmental forces that affect the company’s ability to serve its customers.

The Microenvironment (pp 95–98)
The Macroenvironment (p 98)

OBJECTIVE 2 Explain how changes in the demographic and economic environments affect marketing
decisions.

The Demographic Environment (pp 99–105)
The Economic Environment (pp 106–107)

OBJECTIVE 3 Identify the major trends in the firm’s natural and technological environments.
OBJECTIVE 4
The Natural Environment (pp 107–108)
The Technological Environment (pp 108–111)

Explain the key changes in the political and cultural environments.

The Political and Social Environment (pp 111–114)
The Cultural Environment (pp 114–117)

OBJECTIVE 5 Discuss how companies can react to the marketing environment.

Responding to the Marketing Environment (pp 117–119)

computer revolution is over and that they have to move on, confident that it’s now on the right track. Still, continued suc-
but in their hearts they can’t do it. If Microsoft is around in cess will depend on the company’s ability to effectively adapt
100 years, they will try and sell us a Windows teleporter.” to—or even lead—the lightning-quick changes occurring in the
marketing environment. “The opportunity ahead for Microsoft
But Microsoft seems to be making all the right moves to is vast,” says new CEO Satya Nadella, “but to seize it, we must
stay with or ahead of the times. Microsoft’s sales have trended focus clearly, move faster, and continue to transform.”1
strongly upward over the past few years, and the company is

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Marketing environment A company’s marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside mar-
The actors and forces outside marketing
that affect marketing management’s keting that affect marketing management’s ability to build and maintain successful rela-
ability to build and maintain successful tionships with target customers. Like Microsoft, companies constantly watch and adapt to
relationships with target customers. the changing environment—or, in many cases, lead those changes.

More than any other group in the company, marketers must be environmental trend
trackers and opportunity seekers. Although every manager in an organization should watch
the outside environment, marketers have two special aptitudes. They have disciplined
methods—marketing research and marketing intelligence—for collecting information about