ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a discussion about ‘markets’, ‘risk’, ‘competition’, ‘customer’, ‘profit’, ‘price’ and ‘demand’ and about what these represent, and how they can help us. History helps us, Markets make do and mend, Risk is life, Competition raises all boats, Empowered customers hold funds, and Profits are the result of customer preferences. Profit (or ‘surpluses’) can be redistributed as lower costs or more services. Demand is the expression of otherwise distributed knowledge, which NHS ‘consultation’ seeks to discover but fails. Market forces determine supply, price levels and the cumulative impacts of buyers and sellers. In a proper market the only way to protect the essentials for survival is to deliver a good service, in whichever sector of the market an organisation chooses to supply. In business, market conditions shift constantly. The business of risk assessment is very complex. For the primary economic function of profit in a market society is allocative rather than distributive.
