Citing at least one of the PESTLE factors discuss the implications of each factors to business start up/ operations.

Introduction Business start up is an early stage in the life cycle of an enterprise where the entrepreneur mo es from the idea stage to securing financing! laying down the basis structure of the business! and initiating operations or trading. "hile business operations are those businesses that ha e been trading for #uite some time ! thus both the business start up and operations get affected by the PESTLE either negati e or positi e way. $%ogers &'''( defined PESTLE analysis first used by $)arayanan and *ahey &'+,( representing $ Political! En ironmental! Social! Technological! Legal and Economical( as an analytical tool for strategic business planning. Thus it is a useful method to use in order to identify the e-ternal factors that influence an organi.ation Political factors $/llen 0112( these factors determine the e-tent to which a go ernment may influence the economy or a business set up / operations! for e-ample a go ernment may impose a new ta- or duty due to which entire re enue generating structures of organi.ation might change. Political factors include ta- policies! fiscal policy and trade tariffs. I will loo3 into the implications of trade tariffs on business start up/operations Trade tariffs thus if a go ernment imposes tariffs which are not fa orable to business this ha e got a negati e implications on businesses and the opposite also is true an e-ample is that our country is importing a lot at of ehicle and some company is into the car dealing business or they want to start up! thus if the duty tariffs at the borders are high that would mean negati e implications to the car dealing business while if they are low there positi e implications as the companies are able to offer competiti e prices.

Economic factors 4ey economic indicators include interest rates! disposable income! unemployment rates! inflation! gross domestic product and e-change rates! I will dwell most on inflation! e-change rates and interest rates. $5a it. &'+0( defined Inflation as the general increase in price le el without a compensating in the alue of the goods! thus for a business which want to start up or operate it needs a stable inflation rate of around 67 to 87. If the inflation is hyper li3e the one we had in 9imbabwe in 011+ this will ha e a huge negati e implications to business start up/operation an e-ample is that

of :enenga group of supermar3ets which had its operations during this period to the e-tent of closing most of its outlets which were all o er around town. Interest rates thus $"heelen et al 0110( ga e an e-ample of how interest rates might affect business operations! a rise in interest rates means fewer sales for ma;or home appliances because a rise in interest rates tends to be reflected in higher mortgage rates because most ma;or home appliances are sold when people change houses thus a reduction in house sales soon translate into a decline in sales of refrigerators and other appliances resulting in a negati e implication to business start up/ operation. /lso if the interests are low it means more houses to be sold and at the same time more appliances thus a positi e impact to the business. Social environment Social factors include cultural changes within the en ironment and are often referred to as socio< cultural factors! include factors li3e alues! beliefs and lifestyle ion society. Lifestyle ! $=itt 011&( argued that lifestyle changes impacts on business both positi ely and negati ely an e-ample he ga e is that of an increased number of women in the wor3 force which will ha e an effect of effecti e demand to business start up/operations in clothing merchandise as the women will be bac3ed also by the buying power! on the other hand the demand for ba3ing products staples as most of the women would ha e less time to coo3 from scratch thus impacting negati ely to those who would want to start up in this sector. Technological environment These factors pertain to inno ations in technology that may affect the startup/operation of the business and the mar3et fa orably or unfa orably as it was argued by $Thompson &'+>(. This refers to automation! research and de elopment! production efficiency and the amount of awareness the business possesses. /utomation!

? Legal environment These factors ha e both e-ternal and internal sides. $:ess et al 0116( there are certain laws that affect the business en ironment in a certain business operation/start up while there are also certain policies that companies maintain for themsel es. Besides laws legal en ironment also include consumer protection! health and safety and employment.

Legal policies! thus 9imbabwe is characterised by the indeginisation policy ! which results in the locals getting 8&7 of the shares this also ha e got positi e and bnegati e implications on business start /operationsfor e-ample to the locals this ha e a positi e implication as they are able to start up thier operations they are assured of tyhe 8&7 b ut on the other hand a multinational company which would ha e in ested a lot in business would not want to set up and get less than the ma;ority of the shares thus a negati e implication.

Environmental factors These include those factors that are determined by the en ironment and most of them are uncontrollable. The factors of a business en ironment include climate! weather! geographical locations! global changes and en ironmental offsets among others. Geographical locations thus business start up/ operations which are located near the Central Business :istrict or where there is goods roads and infrastructure tend to ha e positi e implications. /n e-ample is a Peoples @wn Sa ings ban3 outlet located in the CB: which ma3es huge profits as compared to those located in the rural areas li3e Aurambinda growth point! which also pro es that business operations located far from the city or access to modes of transport face negati e implications Conclusion The factors of the PESTLE tend to pose both negati e and positi e implications to the business operations. it is up to the business to wor3 out the best way of sol ing the problem of the PESTLE and also how to increase benefiting if they are positi e and the factors differs to businesses depending on where the business is set .

%eferences / Thompson et al %ogers B &''' C*acilitating Droups Aanagement !*utures ltd! London 5a it. B et al $I'+0(

"heelen : and =unger 0110 Strategic analysis of the BBC $A Aennen 01&&(! /ma.om.com

University of Zimbabwe Department of Business stu ies

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