Identify an industry you would like to learn more about. Ideally, you should be able to gather sufficient information on this industry to thor- oughly analyze the impact of the general environment on industry profit- ability. Although information is available for a wide variety of industries, this exercise will be easier if you choose an industry that has been writ- ten about consistently in the business press. In order to manage the volume of data required for a thorough analysis, your instructor might want you to focus solely on the home country of the largest firms in the industry (unless most firms earn a majority of their profits from abroad).