3.1 Going With the Flow for Business Success

In the previous chapter, we learned about the players in multiple layers of the modern business environment and identified customers, competitors, suppliers, and government as the four key players. These and many other players can be influenced by the economic, technological, and social forces, which can change the climate in the marketplace.

For a profit-seeking firm, the most prominent player is the customer. However, with climate change, the marketplace’s requirements dynamically change, and customers become heterogeneous in what they want and ambiguous in the sense that sometimes they need to learn what they want and why. The inevitable result is a market that might be different in the future than it is now. To remain competitive, a business firm should adapt to these changes, go with the flow, and foresee how things might change. To do so, business firms use forecasting. The following video explains what forecasting is in simple terms.

The following video explains forecasting and why and how it is done.