We examine the role of firms in markets and wider modern economy in much more detail in Chapter 3; here, a brief introduction will suffice. Firms may have a number of objectives but their central purpose is generally recognized as the organization of production for profit. In a sense, with profit as its goal, the firm must ask itself the three basic economic questions: what should it produce, how should production be organized, and at which customers should the goods and services it produces be aimed?