The Macro Environment consists of 6 different forces. They are: Demographic, Economic, Political/Legal, Ecological, Socio-Cultural, and Technological forces (Claessens, 2015). An organization will consider all of these variables when developing a strategic plan to remain competitive in their marketplace because while an organization can be influenced by environmental changes, they cannot influence the environment all by themselves. Economic force links to factors that can affect spending patterns and consumer purchasing power (Claessens, 2015). The Economic force that has impacted me personally at my current organization is the increase in unemployment rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employment trends are important indicators when viewing economic progress. A High unemployment rate can suggest economic conditions are worsening because people are losing their jobs. Furthermore, new jobs are not being created. This trend ultimately leads to a decline in demand for e-commerce products as the unemployment rate increases. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Political forces within the macro environment also was a major factor. The political environment is perhaps among the least predictable elements in the business environment (Pestle, 2015). Like other businesses, my organization was not prepared for the government to step in and close down non-essential e-commerce markets and struggled to adapt new strategies to survive. Unfortunately, every business is in some way or another limited by their political environment. In my case, laws heavily restricted my organization and hindered their ability to sustain success. These economic and political forces resulted in my organization furloughing close to 80% of their staff. This was due to the inability to maintain salaries with the decrease revenue from being forced to close down stores, and the lack of consumer spending taking place within the e-commerce market considering the uncertainty of the countries economic position. In order to adapt to the changing environment, the organization has shifted their strategies away from brick and mortar stores and have began to focus solely on e-commerce as the country begins to recover. However, it has not been without difficulty. COVID-19 has changed retail, and its impact on e-commerce has not been without challenges. "There's been a 129% year-over-year growth in U.S. & Canadian ecommerce orders as of April 21 and an impressive 146% growth in all online retail orders" (Columbus, 2020). As the demand has risen, the ability to meet production has been extremely difficult. The government continues to enforce policies related to social distancing and a limited workforce, and the cost associated with trying to maintain products from suppliers is severely cutting into my organizations profitability.

1. The topic of your discussion response should be your classmate posting and should be written as if you were reviewing his posting in an academic journal. Your discussion response should, therefore, answer the following questions as applicable:
   1. Were your classmate arguments articulate and logical? Were the facts correct?
   2. Was the interpretation your classmate provided reasonable and consistent with experts in the field? Was your classmate consistent with both the substance and intent of his/her references?
2. The focus for your critical analysis is not whether or not you agree with your classmate, but how well his position was presented.