Environmental Scanning &

Monitoring
 Environmental Scanning &
Monitoring
• Environmental scanning is a concept from
• business management by which businesses
gather information from the environment, to
better achieve a sustainable competitive
advantage.

• To sustain competitive advantage the company

must also respond to the information gathered
from environmental scanning by altering
itsstrategiesandplans when the need arises
Environmental Scanning &
Monitoring-Techniques
SWOT
PEST

TECHNIQUE QUEST
S

Industry
Analysis
Competito
r Analysis
 SWOT
(Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat)

Identification of threats and Opportunities in

the environment (External) and strengths
and Weaknesses of the firm (Internal)

-the cornerstone of business policy

formulation; it is these factors which
determine the course of action to
ensure the survival and growth of the
firm.
 SWOT Analysis
HELPFUL HARMFUL
To achieve the
objective

INTERNAL STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

(attributes of the
organization)

EXTERNAL OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

(attributes of the
environment)
 The SWOT analysis is an
extremely useful tool for

- understanding and decision-making

for all sorts of situations in business
and organizations. SWOT is an
acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, Threats
SWOT analysis came from the
research conducted at
Stanford Research Institute from 1960-1970.
The background to SWOT stemmed from
the need to find out why corporate
planning failed. The research was funded
by the fortune 500 companies to find out
what could be done about this failure. The
Research Team were Marion Dosher, Dr
Otis Benepe, Albert Humphrey, Robert
Stewart, Birger Lie
 It all began with the corporate
planning trend
Which seemed to appear first at Du
Pont in 1949. By 1960 every Fortune
500 company had a 'corporate
planning manager’ (or equivalent)
and 'associations of long range
corporate planners' had sprung up in
both the USA and the UK
Strategic and Creative Use of S.W.O.T
Analysis : Orienting to An Objective
• If SWOT analysis does not start with
defining a desired end state or objective, it
runs the risk of being useless. A SWOT
analysis may be incorporated into the
strategic planning model.

• An example of a strategic planning

technique that incorporates an objective-
driven SWOT analysis is SCAN analysis.
SWOT: Studying Internal &
External Environment

• The aim of any SWOT analysis is to

identify the key internal and external
factors that are important to achieving the
objective. SWOT analysis groups key
pieces of information into two main
categories
Internal factors – The strengths and
weaknesses internal to the organization.

External factors
The opportunities and threat s presented by
the external environment.
If a clear objective has been identified, SWOT
analysis can be used to help in the pursuit of that
objective. In this case, SWOTs are

• Strengths: attributes of the organization

that are helpful to achieving the objective

• Weaknesses: attributes of the organization

that are harmful to achieving the objective.
• Strengths:
• attributes of the organization that are
helpful to achieving the objective.

• –Weaknesses:
attributes of the organization that are
harmful to achieving the objective.
.
• Opportunities:
external conditions that are helpful
to achieving the objective.

Threats:
external conditions that are harmful
to achieving the objective.
 Examples of SWOTs
Strengths and Weaknesses
• Resources: financial, intellectual, location
• Cost advantages from proprietary know-
• how
• Creativity / ability to develop new products
• Valuable intangible assets: intellectual
• capital
• Competitive capabilities
• Big campus selection
Opportunities and Threats
- Takeovers –Technology
–Market trends –Public expectations
–Economic condition –Competitors and
–Mergers competitive actions
–Joint ventures –Poor public relations
–Strategic alliances development
–Expectations of –Criticism (editorial)
stakeholders –Global markets
–Environmental
conditions
Uses of SWOT Analysis
Corporate planning

Set objectives – defining what the organization is

intending to do

Environmental scanning
Internal appraisals of the organizations SWOT, this
needs to include an assessment of the present
situation as well as a portfolio of products/
Analysis of existing strategies, this should
determine relevance from the results of an
internal/external appraisal. This may include
gap analysis (compare its actual
performance with its
potential performance which will look at
environmental factors)
•
Strategic Issues defined – key factors in
the development of a corporate plan
which needs to be addressed by the
organisation

• Develop new/revised strategies –

revised analysis of strategic issues may
mean the objectives need to change
•Establish critical success factors – the
achievement of objectives and strategy
implementation

Preparation of operational, resource, projects

• plans for strategy implementation

Monitoring results – mapping against plans

taking corrective action which may mean
amending objectives/strategies
• Also;
• Use SWOT analysis for business planning,
strategic planning, competitor evaluation,
marketing, business and product
development and research reports
Handling SWOTs
•Strengths (maintain, build and leverage)

•Opportunities (prioritise and optimise)

•Weaknesses (remedy or exit)

•Threats (counter)
Thank you for listening…