Environment and Market: Lesson 1: Needs and Wants of People
Environment and Market: Lesson 1: Needs and Wants of People
Environment and Market: Lesson 1: Needs and Wants of People
ENVIRONMENT AND
MARKET
LESSON 1: NEEDS AND WANTS OF PEOPLE
Everyone has his or her
own needs and wants.
However, people have
different concepts of needs
and wants.
Needs in business are important
things that every individual cannot do
without in a society. These include:
1. Basic commodities for consumption
2. Clothing and other personal
belongings
3. Shelter, sanitation, and health
4. Education and relaxation
Basic needs are essential to
every individual so he/she may
be able to live with dignity and
pride in the community of
people. These needs can
obviously help you generate
business ideas.
Needs would be defined as
goods or services that are
required. This would include
the needs for food, clothing,
shelter, health care. These are
things you must have to live.
Wants are goods or
services that are not
necessary but that we desire
or wish for.
Wants are desires, luxury and extravagance
that signify wealth and an expensive way of living.
Wants or desires are considered above all the basic
necessities of life. Some examples are the
eagerness
Or the passion of every individual which are
non- basic needs like; fashion accessories, shoes,
clothes, travelling around the world, eating in an
exclusive restaurant; watching movies, concerts,
plays, having luxurious cars, wearing expensive
jewelry, perfume, living in impressive homes, and
others.
Needs and wants of people are the
basic indicators of the kind of business
that you may engage into because it
can serve as the measure of your
success. Some other good points that
you might consider in business
undertakings are the kind of people,
their needs, wants, lifestyle, culture and
tradition, and social orientation that
they belong.
Lesson 2: Generating
Ideas for Business
Here are some ways by which you may
generate possible ideas for business.
1. Examine the existing goods and services.
2. Examine the present and future needs.
3. Examine how the needs are being
satisfied.
4. Examine the available resources around
you.
5. Read magazines, news articles, and other
publications on new products and
techniques or advances in technology.
1. Examine the existing goods and services.
Are you satisfied with the product? What do other
people who use the product say about it? How can it be
improved? There are many ways of improving a product
from the way it is made to the way it is packed and sold?
You can also improve the materials used in crafting the
product. In addition, you introduce new ways of using the
product, making it more useful and adaptable to the
customers’ many needs. When you are improving the
product or enhancing it, you are making an innovation. You
can also make an invention by introducing an entirely new
product to replace the old one.
Business ideas may also be generated by examining
what goods and services are sold outside by the
community. Very often, these products are sold in a form
that can still be enhanced or improved.
2. Examine the present and future needs.
Look at and listen to what the customers,
institution, and communities are missing in terms of
goods and services. Sometimes, these needs are
already obvious and felt at the moment. Other needs
are not that obvious because they can only be felt in
the future, in the event of certain developments in the
community. For example, a town will have its
electrification facility in the next six months. Only by
that time will the entrepreneur think of electrically-
powered or generated business such as a photocopier,
computer service, digital printing, etc.
3. Examine how the needs are being satisfied.
Needs for the products and services are referred to
as market demand. To satisfy these needs is to supply the
products and services that meet the demands of the
market. The term market refers to whoever will use or buy
the products or service, and these may be people or
institutions such as other businesses, establishments,
organizations, or government agencies.
There is a very good business opportunity when
there is absolutely no supply to a pressing market demand.
Businesses or industries in the locality also have
needs for goods and services. Their needs for raw
materials, maintenance, and other services such as selling
and distribution are good sources of ideas for business.
4. Examine the available resources around you.
Observe what materials or skills are available in abundance in
your area. A business can be started out of available raw materials by
selling them in raw form and by processing and manufacturing them into
finished products. For example, in a copra-producing town, there will be
many coconut husks and shells available as “waste” products. These can
be collected and made into coco rags/doormat and charcoal bricks and
sold profitably outside the community.
A group of people in your neighborhood may have some special
skills that can be harnessed for business. For example, women in the
Mountain Province possess loom weaving skills that have been passed on
from one generation to the next generation. Some communities there set
up weaving businesses to produce blankets, as well as decorative items
and various souvenir items for sale to tourists and lowland communities.
Business ideas can come from your own skills. The work and
experience you may have in agricultural arts, industrial arts, home
economics, and ICT classes will provide you with business opportunities
to acquire the needed skills which will earn for you extra income, should
you decide to engage in income-generating activities. With your skills, you
may also tinker around with various things in your spare time. Many
products were invented this way.
5. Read magazines, news articles, and
other publications on new products and
techniques or advances in technology.
You can pick up new business ideas from
Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Business Magazines, Go
Negosyo, KAB materials, Small- industry Journal. The
Internet serves as a library where you may browse and surf
on possible businesses. It will also guide you on how to put
the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the
right time.
Listing of possible businesses to set up in an area
may also be available from banks or local non-government
organizations.
Lesson 3 : Selecting
the Right Idea
Once you have embarked on
identifying the business
opportunities, you will eventually
see that there are many
possibilities that are available for
you. It is very unlikely that you
will have enough resources to
pursue all of them at once. Which
one will you choose?
In screening your ideas, examine
each one in terms of the following
factors:
1. How much capital is needed to put
up the business?
2. How big is the demand for the
product? Do many people need this
product and will continue to need it
for a long time?
3. How is the demand met? Who are
processing the products to meet the
need (competition or demand)? How
much of the need is now being met
(supply)?