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Environmental Scanning

Organizational success depends on both internal and external environmental factors. Environmental scanning involves collecting and using information about events, trends, and relationships within an organization's internal and external environments to help managers understand the future landscape. Scanning must identify threats and opportunities. Internal analysis examines employee interactions, resources, and strengths/weaknesses, while external analysis studies competitors, markets, technologies, and the industry, national, and macro environments to reveal opportunities and threats. Strategic managers must understand the current environment and predict future conditions.

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454 views

Environmental Scanning

Organizational success depends on both internal and external environmental factors. Environmental scanning involves collecting and using information about events, trends, and relationships within an organization's internal and external environments to help managers understand the future landscape. Scanning must identify threats and opportunities. Internal analysis examines employee interactions, resources, and strengths/weaknesses, while external analysis studies competitors, markets, technologies, and the industry, national, and macro environments to reveal opportunities and threats. Strategic managers must understand the current environment and predict future conditions.

Uploaded by

nestor dones
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Environmental Scanning - Internal & External Analysis of Environment

Organizational environment consists of both external and internal factors.


Environment must be scanned so as to determine development and forecasts of
factors that will influence organizational success. Environmental scanning refers
to possession and utilization of information about occasions, patterns, trends,
and relationships within an organizations internal and external environment. It
helps the managers to decide the future path of the organization. Scanning
must identify the threats and opportunities existing in the environment. While
strategy formulation, an organization must take advantage of the opportunities
and minimize the threats. A threat for one organization may be an opportunity
for another.

Internal analysis of the environment is the first step of environment scanning.


Organizations should observe the internal organizational environment. This
includes employee interaction with other employees, employee interaction with
management, manager interaction with other managers, and management
interaction with shareholders, access to natural resources, brand awareness,
organizational structure, main staff, operational potential, etc. Also, discussions,
interviews, and surveys can be used to assess the internal environment. Analysis
of internal environment helps in identifying strengths and weaknesses of an
organization.

As business becomes more competitive, and there are rapid changes in the
external environment, information from external environment adds crucial
elements to the effectiveness of long-term plans. As environment is dynamic, it
becomes essential to identify competitors moves and actions. Organizations
have also to update the core competencies and internal environment as per
external environment. Environmental factors are infinite, hence, organization
should be agile and vigile to accept and adjust to the environmental changes.
For instance - Monitoring might indicate that an original forecast of the prices of
the raw materials that are involved in the product are no more credible, which
could imply the requirement for more focused scanning, forecasting and
analysis to create a more trustworthy prediction about the input costs. In a
similar manner, there can be changes in factors such as competitors activities,
technology, market tastes and preferences.

While in external analysis, three correlated environment should be studied and


analyzed

immediate / industry environment


national environment
broader socio-economic environment / macro-environment
Examining the industry environment needs an appraisal of the competitive
structure of the organizations industry, including the competitive position of a
particular organization and its main rivals. Also, an assessment of the nature,
stage, dynamics and history of the industry is essential. It also implies evaluating
the effect of globalization on competition within the industry. Analyzing the
national environment needs an appraisal of whether the national framework
helps in achieving competitive advantage in the globalized environment.
Analysis of macro-environment includes exploring macro-economic, social,
government, legal, technological and international factors that may influence
the environment. The analysis of organizations external environment reveals
opportunities and threats for an organization.

Strategic managers must not only recognize the present state of the
environment and their industry but also be able to predict its future positions.

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