You need to consider each PEST factor as they all play a part in determining your overall business environment. Thus, when looking at political factors you should consider the impact of any political or legislative changes that could affect your business. If you are operating in more than one country then you will need to look at each country in turn. Political factors include aspects such as laws on maternity rights, data protection and even environmental policy: these three examples alone have an on impact employment terms, information access, product specification and business processes in many businesses globally.
Obviously politicians don't operate in a vacuum, and many political changes result from changes in the economy or in social and cultural mores, for example. Thus although tax rates are generally decided by politicians, tax decisions generally also include economic considerations such as what is the state of the economy. In Europe, the politicians drove the introduction of the euro currency but the impacts include economic factors: cross-border pricing, European interest rates, bank charges, price transparency and so on. Other economic factors include exchange rates, inflation levels, income growth, debt &