Environment Analysis

Business Environment Analysis Background Environmental analysis is a systematic process that starts from identification of environmental factors, assessing their nature and impact, auditing them to find their impact to the business, and making various profiles for positioning. A common process of environmental analysis or scanning is discussed in the following section. Environmental Analysis Process A business manager should be able to analyze the environment to grasp opportunities or face the threats. Organizations need to build strength and repair their weakness available in the business environment. Therefore, this process consists not only a single steps but a process of various steps. Environmental analysis comprises scanning, monitoring, analyzing, and forecasting the business situation. Scanning is to get the relevant information from the information overload. It is to focus on the most relevant information. Monitoring is to check the nature of the environmental factors. Analyzing requires data collection and use of different required tools and techniques. Forecasting is to find the future possibilities based on the past results and present scenario. Environmental analysis process is not static but a dynamic process. It may differ depending on the situation. However, a general process with few common steps can be identified as the process of environmental analysis these are a) Monitoring or identifying environmental factors, b) Scanning and selecting the relevant factors and grouping them, c) Defining variables for analysis, d) Using different methods, tools, and techniques for analysis, e) Analyzing environmental factors and forecasting, f) Designing profiles, and g) Strategic positioning and writing a report. Brief discussion is made on each of the step of this environmental analysis process. Identifying environmental factors First of all a strategist should identify all the relevant factors that might affect his or her business. In this process, one