Technological change

Technology is improving very quickly all the time. The time it takes to create a product has been reduced and this means it can get to market faster. The result of this is that the product life cycles are now becomming shorter. Research used to say that only 1/5 products that reached the market were sucessful. Now that figure is 1/7. Even if a product suceeds its life cycle is likely to be very short. Because of the increasing demand for quality firms spend more time in development and less time reaping the rewards. 

The threats of technology are clear. Firms that do not adopt competative technology will struggle to keep costs down or struggle to provide goods and services of sufficient quality and advanced specifications. 

Due to the costs involved it is not always possible for a firm to accquire the new technology it wants. Another problem associated with this is that soon after technology is bought it soon becomes out of…