This assignment allows you to determine the specific details about the Essay

This assignment allows you to determine the specific details about the fictitous company in order to conduct an environmental scan of this company - Essay Example The two owners take care of the managerial aspects of the business, including financial forecasting; accounting and dealing with suppliers and buyers (there are no other salaried employees). Right now the business is facing great competition from rival manufacturers. As the operation is relatively small, producing only 6,000 units of output per month, they cannot enjoy economies of scale that are available to larger manufacturers, these manufacturers also have more clout over their suppliers (or have integrated backward operations) allowing for a lower cost of raw material which translates into lower prices for their customers. Similarly, challenging is the inflow of imported manufacturing parts from economies like China, Japan and Germany which can compete at prices lower than local prices. Government policies enhancing free trade and lowering of trade quotas means that without legislative protection, they have to introduce more efficient and effective ways of processing if the business is to remain afloat. The relative competitiveness in the market along with threat of new (more powerful) entrants will decide whether the business can continue to run or will have to be shut down. With the recession of 2008, the economy took a severe downturn and because of financial security concerns, the banks were reluctant to hand out loans to small businesses. The two partners started their business on self finance and in order to introduce new technology or managerial staff to run their business they will need more resources than they have on hand. Their focus for the past few months has been to form strong relationships with their current customers, including car dealerships, repair shops and the used car market, through strategic marketing and PR platforms. But at the moment they cannot gain customers in the car manufacturing sector as they don’t have the capacity to bring in large orders of