Specific environment. It includes external forces that directly impacts organizations' decisions and actions and are directly relevant to the achievement of organization's goals. An organization's specific environment is unique to it. For instance, Timex and Rolex both make watches, but their specific environments differ because they operate in distinctly different market niches. The main forces that make up the specific environment are customers, suppliers, competitors and pressure groups.
General environment. It includes the broad economic, political/legal, socio-cultural, demographic, technological, and global conditions that affect an organization, although these external forces do not affect the organizations to the extent that changes in their specific environment do, organizations must consider them as they plan, organize, lead and control.