Environments

Market environment

The market environment is the immediate outside world a business deals with every day: customers, suppliers, competitors and intermediaries.

CAPS

Grade 10 · Business Studies · Environments

Business Studies answers in business language, applied to the scenario.

The papers
Paper 1 is business environments and business ventures. Paper 2 is business roles and business operations. Each paper is 150 marks.
A 40-mark essay
Introduction 2 marks: say what the essay will deal with. Body: facts from the scenario, each with an explanation of the impact or the solution. Conclusion 2 marks: a decision, not a new fact. Insight is 4 marks for layout, analysis, synthesis and originality.
How a marker reads it
A common mix-up is calling load shedding or a new tax a market factor, when those are macro forces felt across the whole economy.

Quotes from a scenario must be used, not copied as decoration. A definition with no link to the business in the question stays in the low marks.

Worked theory

Worked theory. Lindiwe and Thabo each run a hair salon on the same street in Mamelodi, and a relaxer at both shops costs R180. Their Pretoria wholesaler raises a tub of relaxer from R90 to R140. Lindiwe lifts her price to R230 while Thabo stays at R180 and takes a thinner margin. Within a month, eight of Lindiwe's regulars cross the street. Neither mission statement changed. The supplier and the competitor, both market forces, did.

More worked examples

Nomsa's vetkoek stall
Nomsa sells vetkoek for R8 at a taxi rank in Soweto and usually clears the tray by mid-morning. A second stall opens two metres away and sells the same vetkoek for R6. Her flour supplier has not changed price and no new law has passed. By Friday her tray is still half full at noon. The new stall is a competitor in the market environment, and customers simply choose the cheaper queue.
Warwick spice shop
A spice shop in Warwick, Durban, buys masala through one wholesaler who also supplies five other shops. The wholesaler switches to Thursday-only deliveries and adds a R50 fee. The shop runs out of chilli on a busy Saturday and customers walk to a supermarket that still has stock. The shop's own staff and mission did not change. The intermediary between producer and buyer is what broke the week's trade.

In ordinary words

Customers decide whether to buy, and suppliers set the cost and reliability of inputs. Competitors offer something similar to the same people, so a price or a better location can pull sales across the street. Intermediaries such as wholesalers, agents and delivery riders stand between the maker and the final buyer. The business does not own these groups, but a change in any one of them changes sales even when the mission on the wall stays the same.

In South Africa

Two salon doors face each other on a Mamelodi street, and the same wholesaler's bakkie stops at both.

Part 1 / 4

What it is

The market environment is the immediate outside world a business deals with every day: customers, suppliers, competitors and intermediaries.

More worked examples

Board walkthroughs on this topic. Open one, copy the working, then try the next.

Example 1 / 20

Case study: A new spaza shop opens next to Mama Thoko's shop and sells bread R2 cheaper. Identify the market environment component and suggest a response.

How we got there

Read this like a teacher at the board. We go slowly, name every number, and say why we take each step.

Explain in another language · 11

1. What is the question asking?

Read the question twice. Circle the unknown. Underline every number and unit. The paper is asking: Case study: A new spaza shop opens next to Mama Thoko's shop and sells bread R2 cheaper. Identify the market environment component and suggest a response.

In other words — as if you have never seen this before

If you have never seen this before: Market environment: customers, suppliers, competitors, intermediaries. We will name a method in words, write the formula with no numbers, then substitute one line at a time.

2. What do we already know?

Competitor.

3. Which method — and why this one?

Market environment: customers, suppliers, competitors, intermediaries.

4. Step-by-step working

01 / 05
Identify the given
Competitors.
Why this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
02 / 05
Apply
Response: improve service, offer loyalty discounts, stock unique items, open longer hours.
Why this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
03 / 05
Step G — Sense-check the size
Ask: is this the kind of number a Grade 10–12 paper would want? A speed of 3 000 ms for a learner walking, or a probability bigger than 1, means a unit or algebra slip. Estimate first: round the numbers and do the sum in your head.
Why this step: Markers write ‘unrealistic’ in the margin when the method is right but the size is wild. A 10-second head check often finds a missing 10² or a unit that never changed.
04 / 05
Step F — Box the answer with its unit
Competitor — respond with better service and specials.
Why this step: A number without a unit is half a mark on a Physics paper, and a marker can miss a Maths answer that is buried in working.
05 / 05
Step H — What the marker is looking for
On an NSC memo you usually earn: (1) a method mark for naming the right formula or idea in words, (2) an accuracy mark for substituting the given numbers with units, (3) an accuracy mark for the boxed answer with its unit. Write those three lines even if you are unsure of the arithmetic — blank pages score zero.
Why this step: First-timers chase the final number and leave the method blank. The memo still pays out for the idea and the substitution even when the last line is wrong.

5. The answer

Competitor — respond with better service and specials.

Copy onto your answer sheet — in this order

Answer: Competitor — respond with better service and specials.

6. Check it like a marker

Business has limited control here.

7. A trap first-timers fall into

First-timers often grab the first formula they remember, mix units (cm with m, minutes with seconds), or drop a minus sign. Write the formula in words first: “this equals that, because…”

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Macro environment

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