Environmental Scanning is probably one of the most important aspects of Marketing. This process as explained by our textbook helps companies both identify trends and changes in the business and economic environment and to figure out how to plan their business model and marketing plans to achieve the highest return possible. Although there are five Environmental Forces that our text book and our class lectures covered, this paper will serve only three of those forces. All five forces can affect the supplier, the organization itself in various departments, and the end of line customer (Kerin, Hartley, & Rudelius, 2013).
The first force is Social. This affects not only how consumers look at companies and what items they want to purchase, but also how companies look at the buying trends and social responsibility of consumers and plan for their products. What consumers buy not only reflects their needs and wants, but also to some degree what society says is the best to buy. One big issue that our society is dealing with is the increase in population, and the decrease in food that is available to feed the population. Scientists have come up with a way to increase food production by genetically modifying plants to not only withstand drought conditions, pests, and other crop destroying factors, but also to cut down on the time it takes to grow them, thereby increasing production to feed an ever growing world. However, these genetically modified plants do not come without a price tag. There has been some discussion that these modified plants, since being resistant to many things, are causing health problems to people.
Many people are looking at being healthier through exercise, the food they eat, and their habits. This being the case, many people look to organic foods to purchase and consume to avoid the pesticides, antibiotics and other things that they deem