Reflections of Life Cycle in the New Economy - Essay Example

?Life Cycle in the New Economy In Wall Street and The Social Network. The story line portrays real issues that deal with the PESTLE analysis whereby products and services lived their boom and bust cycles. This analysis includes political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. Like human beings, products also have a life-cycle. From birth to death, human beings pass through various stages e.g. birth, growth, maturity, decline and death (Rey, 2004). A similar life-cycle is seen in the case of products. The product life cycle goes through multiple phases, involves many professional disciplines, and requires many skills, tools and processes. Each factor played a pivotal role in the development of the story line in each movie. While some factors were more important than others, it is important to go through all of the factors associated with the PESTLE analysis. In terms of the Political environment, Wall St. 2 starts with the release of Gordon Gekko from prison as a result of insider trading. This set the environment for his alienation from the finance industry. He leverages his relationship with his future son-in-law Jake, for access to his daughters’ money. As a political outcast, Gordon was forced to make back door deals in order to start his offshore finance company. The situation was similar in the Social Network. Mark began the movie sitting at a table deliberating over his actions that led to the ensuing lawsuit. Intellectual property rights are a growing body of legal work that has yet to be developed into an exact science. Hence, the political environment for his actions was ripe, in so far as he may not be able to get away with the same actions years down the road. The Facebook is seemingly a compilation of the ideas of other individuals, while he did not draft the entire concept of others ideas, he took bits and pieces of their information. Fortunately, our nation was at a point where we wanted something new and were willing to stand behind it. The economic environment actually has a close link to the political environment. Both movies were based in the modern era which means that they both shared the same economic environment, yet there were two completely different outcomes. While Jake suffered massive losses as of the change in the economy, that very same transition offered opportunity to Mark. Specifically, in 2007 there was a massive financial failure within the stock market. The bottom fell out of the housing market and banking institutions were merely trading with fiat cash that wasn’t there to begin with. This forced financial executives to pass on the losses to the individuals within the market. As a natural consequence, there was a panic and everyone with money in stocks headed towards the quickest exits. Mark had a different experience with the creation of his internet giant. Just when people assumed that the internet had reached its maximum functionality, he was able to innovate and create a new method through which consumers could interact. In fact, he was able to generate an entirely new stream of revenue that relied on a non-traditional market. The social environment for both of the movies seemed to be equal. The main character in each movie seemed to either be accepted by those who are closest and misunderstood by those who watched from a distance. Specifically in Wall St.2, Jake was accepted by those who worked within his financial firm and even the alternative energy business. While at the same time, his competitor merely wanted to use him in order to protect their own business. Additionally, Mark was viewed as an investment by his “best friend”. Mark felt as if he was under appreciated for doing all of the work within the company and since he was responsible for making the right business decisions, he felt as if he was entitled to greater representation in terms of shares. The changing technological environment played a pivotal role in the development of each story line. Specifically, the role of the alternative energy firm forced Jake to make the decisions that he made. While some may argue that he acted out of the want for money, the money was merely a means to the end of producing technology that will reduce the global dependence on oil. These deeper concerns for humanity are what fueled his pursuit of funding for the new energy research (Rey, 2004). In The Social Network, technology is what fueled the entire storyline. Technology provides to be the most effective part of the life cycle impacting the business structure of the Facebook. Their timing was more than perfect which allowed the organization to start up with little if any barriers to entry. The legal environment was critical in both movies. Both Mark and Jake found themselves at odds with the legal code. Both individuals were attempting to bend the rules in favor of their desired outcomes, and both individuals felt the repercussions. While Jake almost lost his fiance because he attempted to gain access to fund his business venture, Mark almost lost his best friend because he attempted to dilute his shares in the company (Rey, 2004). Each individual had self interested intentions that could have possibly cause their ideas to never come to fruition. While there were other very pressing environmental factors that contributed to the development of the story line in each of these movies, the primary factors associated with the product life cycle remained constant in both Wall St. and The Social Network. Both Mark and Jake went through a boom and bust cycle. While the order may not have been the same, and while their industries may have been polar opposites, they were still able to accomplish their business objective (Levitt, 1965). While companies are capable of experiencing growth, it will be exciting to see if FaceBook is simply a fad or in its infancy stages. A fad product holds a steep sloped growth stage, a short maturity stage, and a steep sloped decline stage (Rey, 2004). A product such as Coca Cola and Pepsi would experience growth, but also a constant level of sales over a number of decades. This is not only because those products have a constant demand within society, but because they are far enough within the mainstream of product acceptability. It can probably be said that a given product (or products collectively within an industry) may hold a unique Product Life Cycle shape, and the typical Product Life Cycle model can only be used as a rough guide for marketing management (Rey, 2004). The future marketing of both financial services and internet sites can learn a lot from these two movies. These movies exhibit the entire life cycle two of the most risky products on the market. But with great risk come great reward, so as a road map for future products PESTLE serves as a great guide. Works Cited Levitt, T. (1965) Exploit the product life cycle, Harvard Business Review, vol 43, November-December 1965, pp 81–94. Rey F.J., Martin-Gil J., Velasco E. et al.(2004) Life Cycle Assessment and external environmental cost analysis of heat pumps, Environmental Engineering Science, vol 21, September 2004, pp 591–605 Read More