Firms are adjusting the way they do business for more
reasons than just the economy. Virtually every industry has been
touched by dramatic shifts in the technological, demographic,
social-cultural, natural, and political-legal environments. In this
chapter, we consider how firms can develop processes to identify
and track important macroenvironment trends. We also outline
how marketers can develop good sales forecasts. Chapter 4 will
review how they conduct more customized research on specific
marketing problems.