Maruti Udyog became the leader in the small car market because it was the first to recognise the need for small cars in an environment of rising petroleum prices and large middle class population in India.

Identify the importance of Business environment in the given case study.

Identify opportunities and getting first mover advantage

The correct answer is option (3)-  Identify opportunities and getting first mover advantage.

The importance of the business environment in the given case study is Identify opportunities and getting first-mover advantage.

Maruti Udyog recognized the need for small cars in the context of rising petroleum prices and a large middle-class population in India. This indicates that they identified an opportunity in the business environment and gained a first-mover advantage by addressing that need before others in the market.

Opportunities refer to the positive external trends or changes that will help a firm to improve its performance. Environment provides numerous opportunities for business success. Early identification of opportunities helps an enterprise to be the first to exploit them instead of losing them to competitors. For example, Maruti Udyog became the leader in the small car market because it was the first to recognize the need for small cars in an environment of rising petroleum prices and a large middle-class population in India.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Assisting in planning and policy formulation: Since environment is a source of both opportunities and threats for a business enterprise, its understanding and analysis can be the basis for deciding the future course of action (planning) or training guidelines for decision making (policy). For instance, entry of new players in the market, which means more competition may make an enterprise think afresh about how to deal with the situation.

• Coping with rapid changes: Today’s business environment is getting increasingly dynamic where changes are taking place at a fast pace. It is not the fact of change itself that is so important as the pace of change. Turbulent market conditions, less brand loyalty, divisions and sub-divisions (fragmentation) of markets, more demanding customers, rapid changes in technology and intense global competition are just a few of the images used to describe today’s business environment. All sizes and all types of enterprises are facing increasingly dynamic environment. In order to effectively cope with these significant changes, managers must understand and examine the environment and develop suitable courses of action.

• Tapping useful resources: Environment is a source of various resources for running a business. To engage in any type of activity, a business enterprise assembles various resources called inputs like finance, machines, raw materials, power and water, labour, etc., from its environment including financiers, government and suppliers. They decide to provide these resources with their own expectations to get something in return from the enterprise. The business enterprise supplies the environment with its outputs such as goods and services for customers, payment of taxes to government, return on financial investment to investors and so on. Because the enterprise depends on the environment as a source of inputs or resources and as an outlet for outputs, it only makes sense that the enterprise designs policies that allow it to get the resources that it needs so that it can convert those resources into outputs that the environment desires. This can be done better by understanding what the environment has to offer.