It may be a bit tricky to understand or practice terms used in economics and business while starting up a business such as a monopoly, a situation where you have no competition in your business, where you want to be the only enterpriser supplying a particular product. Certain business people enjoy a monopoly business because it has significant control over the pricing of its goods or services, since it doesn’t have any opposition to compete for customers. Monopolies use patents, mergers, and acquisitions to obtain industry dominance and prevent market entry. According to Gloire Kayitare, an economist currently working with the Talent Match as the project lead, thinking about a monopoly business one should first of all understand that it’s different with perfect competition market where in a monopolistic market, there is only one firm that dictates the price and supply levels of goods and services. “A perfectly competitive market is composed of many firms, where no firm has market control. Being a monopoly has different advantages for the side of the owner but disadvantages on the side of the market or buyers. As per definition if a business is monopoly this means that it does not have any competitor which means the owner is a price maker which leads to his/her profit maximization, he/she can sell at any price and get buyers, not because they are happy for the price but because they don’t have choice, which is a disadvantage to them” He further says that if he has to advise someone to choose one between those two, monopoly would be better due to the profit maximization but again as an economist, he would say that based on some theories monopoly obstructs the equilibrium between producer and consumer, leading to shortages and high prices which results into market failure. James Katuhaire, a teacher of Economics says, monopolies often affect industries negatively, but the circumstances can differ across different industries and markets. “When a company has zero competitors, consumers have no choice but to buy from the monopoly. The firm will has no check on its power to raise prices or lower the quality of its goods and services” Katuhaire says According to smallbusiness.com, a highly-profitable monopoly may have little incentive for improvement as long as consumers still demonstrate a need for their current product or service. In comparison, businesses in a competitive market can compete by making changes to existing products and services and lowering prices. Monopolies ensure that there are high barriers to entry and thus no free riding or adaptations to their current patents. The labor force in a monopolised industry may also be significantly less than that of a competitive industry.
