Social Environment, Business Environment Video Lecture | Business Environment - B Com

in this video we're going to focus on
discussing the social environment as one
of the five dimensions of the external
business environment the social
environment is very very important in
businesses spend a great deal of time
evaluating it often refer to as the
socio-cultural environment the social
environment deals mainly with ultimately
society and how the society in which the
business business operates in ultimately
impacts and effects that particular
business and so some of the things that
we look for when evaluating a society
and trying to determine ultimately what
its impact on business is going to be
are things like the beliefs of a society
obviously these change depending upon
what society that you operate in now we
also look at things like norms those
kind of unwritten and undocumented rules
we look at things like demographics
right the actual makeup of the society
presents different opportunities and
also presents different challenges as
well on top of demographics we also
going to look at things like consumer
preferences that are constantly changing
and as a result of that businesses
really need to spend a great deal of
attention to make sure that the
Preferences of consumers aren't
necessarily changing for the worse and
making it so that the particular goods
and services of that company aren't out
of date they have to try and stay
current and part of that is evaluating
and making sure that the preferences of
consumers is in line with what
ultimately the business is actually
doing at that point in time so let me
give you some examples of how this might
look and a few examples ultimately of
some changes that we've seen over the
past several years or so that are making
an impact and what businesses are doing
in response to that first thing that I
want to mention here with this falls
under the category of demographics which
is obviously a big one there
is the changes in the Hispanic
population here in the Central Valley of
California and we see a very very rising
Hispanic population in the Central
Valley it has been for a number of years
is going to continue to rise at a very
rapid rate and so that presents some
very significant opportunities for
different types of businesses what we've
seen just initially is a great deal of
advertising and promotion that is geared
towards the Hispanic population simply
because of how large they are in number
and obviously that can command some some
spending power as well and so that's a
that's a very very big thing is having
the additional advertising expenditures
because you're trying to attract that
large group and by advertising of course
we're attempting to get customers to
purchase our particular products but
also just to be aware of us and so we've
seen that rise at a very significant
rate we've seen different products
actually tailored towards the Hispanic
demographic because once again just the
large number of Hispanic individuals but
also the spending power that they did at
companies as a demographic of that size
simply cannot be ignored
another big shift that we've seen
another example I give you is with
regards to consumer preferences and you
probably are at least somewhat aware of
unfortunately hostess the maker of the
iconic Twinkie is going through the
liquidation process and is filed for
bankruptcy protection back in early 2012
and they had a number of different
things that unfortunately they failed to
do but among those was failing to adapt
to changes in consumer preferences and
that was a very very big thing because
one of the changes that has happened
within the last several years is a shift
towards healthier lifestyles and we've
seen just a lot of restaurants have
changed menus to healthier offerings
there's been a
kind of a shift with regards to the
population in terms of priorities and
we've been almost awakened to some of
the health effects of not maintaining a
healthy lifestyle that's caused us to
kind of shift things a little bit and so
that change in consumer preferences was
very very impactful to hostess and they
made some attempts to try and diversify
their product mix to sell some healthier
offerings but unfortunately it was
nothing that really stuck in the minds
of consumers and in society at large
which was a very big issue for them and
one that ultimately led to declining
demand for their products and ultimately
led to their uneventful or unfortunate
demise I should say that so as I've
mentioned before in past lectures you
know understanding one environment over
the other it's not going to necessarily
help you because you can't change them
but what the benefit will provide is
it's going to allow you to see some of
the shifts that are taking place right
see shifting consumer preferences if
you're evaluating the social environment
properly and accurately and then maybe
you can put yourself in a position to
leverage that maybe shifting towards
that demographic things like Whole Foods
for example different restaurants
offering and promoting their healthier
offerings and those are they're trying
to take advantage of that shift in
consumer preferences which can only be
done if you take some careful do some
careful analysis and take the time to
properly evaluate the environment