Political Factors Affecting Microsoft

Management can be defined as getting the maximum efficiency and effectiveness out of a set of activities.

A manager carries out this process.

My chosen company for this project is Microsoft. I chose them because they are one of the biggest technological companies in the world. The managers in this company need to have a good understanding of the different factors that affect the environment of their workplace.

Macro Environment

Political/Legal factors:

Microsoft is affected by political factors above any other. They attracted government and political party attention because of antitrust related issues. The issue was that whether or not Microsoft could tie their Internet Explorer web browser to their Microsoft Windows operating system. It

Smartphone ownership by young adults has risen dramatically since 2012. These younger smartphone users are more likely to use location-based information services than older users. Over 80% of young adults also use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Microsoft advertising has premium content that attracts young adults and effective targeting to get the message across efficiently when they are online. Microsoft has a wide range of platforms that their audience make use of, such as:

Xbox/Xbox LIVE – Gaming and entertainment are crucial parts of young adults’ lives. Advertising through Xbox brings the brand to the most important screen in the home.

Skype – It has over 40 million users and 54% of them are younger than 35. This is the world’s leading video chat service and an easy way to reach young adults on a wide scale.

Microsoft Mobile Advertising – With almost 50 million active mobile users across all mobile devices, Mobile Advertising allows a connection with young users while they’re

These include some well-known technology companies such as Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle and more. Microsoft is a very diverse company that offers many different products and services. However, it does face some heavy competition in key areas of the technology sector.

Microsoft’s first focus was software and even though they still have a strong emphasis and this sector, they have branched out into other areas as well. Oracle and SAP(German based company) compete with Microsoft for the business services market.

Microsoft’s most popular product is its Operating System. There is much competition in this area with Apple’s iOS and other smaller firms such as Red Hat, that distribute open-source operating systems such as Linux.

Microsoft distributes tablets as well that compete with other companies such as Apple. Logitech are another big competitor because they also make computer accessories.

Microsoft’s search engine Bing has heavy competition with Google’s search engine.

Suppliers

Microsoft has a supplier program that contains specific requirements that have to be met. Suppliers are evaluated against certain business objectives. Not every supplier that is recommended for the program is