The analysis of the global environment of a company is called global environmental analysis. This analysis is part of a company's analysis-system, which also comprises various other analyses, like the industry analysis, the market analysis and the analyses of companies, clients and competitors. This system can be divided into a macro and micro level. Except for the global environmental analysis, all other analyses can be found on the micro level. Though, the global environmental analysis describes the macro environment of a company. [1] A company is influenced by its environment. Many environmental factors, especially economical or social factors, play a big role in a company's decisions, because the analysis and the monitoring of those factors reveal chances and risks for the company's business. This environmental framework also gives information about location issues. A company is thereby able to determine its location sites. Furthermore, many other strategic decisions are based on this analysis. One may also apply the BBW model. [2] [3] In addition, the factors are analyzed to evaluate external business developments. [4] It is finally the task of the management to adapt the firm to its environment or to influence the environment in an adequate way. The latter is mostly the more difficult option. There are different instruments to analyze the company's environment which are going to be explained afterwards.
One instrument to analyse the company's external environment is the PEST analysis. PEST stands for political, economical, social and technological factors. Two more factors, the legal and environmental factor, are defined within the PESTLE analysis. [5] To explain these environmental factors, it is necessary to say that most of the factors depend on each other and that they change over the years. Consequently, when one factor changes it also affects the others. The equality for every company is the main characteristic of the factors in an environmental analysis. [6] The different environmental factors are covered below.
Political and legal factors are here regarded as a unit. They refer to framework given by politics. They exist as regulatory or legal frameworks, which can be binding for regions, nations or on an international basis. The frameworks deal with economical issues or issues concerning the labour market. Subsidies, for instance, fall in the category of economical issues. According to the degree of support through subsidies, a country can be more or less attractive for a company. With respect to the labour law of a country, it can highly influence location decisions, too. If e.g. the dismissal protection in a country is very good, a firm may tend to choose a country with a more flexible hire-and-fire-system. Furthermore, the stability of a political system is a real important aspect for most firms. A social market economy with rights for co-determination, regulations for patents, the company's investment and environment protection are main characteristics for a political stable system.
Economical factors deal with national or international economical developments and have a direct influence on supplier and consumer markets. Examples of economical factors that play a big role are: the qqqqq, the rate of inflation, interests, the change rate, employment or the situation of money markets. These economical factors influence demand, competition intensity, cost pressure and the will to invest. For instance, if the gross domestic product of a country is fairly low, the demand is in general lower than in countries with a higher GDP.
Social factors deal with social issues regarding the values, ideas, opinions and the culture of market participants. Market participants can be employees, customers or suppliers. Through their contact with the company, they influence it due to their opinions. The company needs to follow the market participant's change of value and adapt its strategies. Nowadays, a change of values concerning environmental protection is on the move.
Technological environmental factors are meanwhile of a great importance, especially for industrial companies, which underlie a fast technological change. The increasing speed of technological changes, like in microelectronics or robotics indicate risks chances for a company. Particularly producing companies are affected of that fast evolution.
At last, environmental factors are becoming more and more important nowadays. They regard natural resources and the basis of human life. Among those, the availability of raw materials and energy is the main topic. As the availability of fossil fuels, like oil or coal, gets worse within the next decades, the dependency on those fuels stays pretty risky. Moreover, to show an ecological responsibility, companies should assess and reduce their ecological damage. Through rare raw materials and increasing pollution, an environmentally friendly management gets spotlighted more and more by the public interest. Consequently, eco-friendly products or technologies can even signify a competitive advantage. [7]
The segmentation according to the six presented factors of the PESTLE analysis is the starting point of the global environmental analysis. The analysis can be done with the help of a checklist that evaluates every criterion of a segment. In this manner, the status of the global environment shall be defined. In general, every segment needs to be worked on systematically to recognize changes. Then, the factors and its impacts can be interpreted right. After the segmentation, the analysis consists of four further steps:
The first step is called scanning. Through environmental scanning, every segment is analyzed to find trend indicators. Thus, after having examined the segment, indicators for its development are defined. [8] According to Fahey and Narayanan, scanning reveals ‘actual or imminent change because it explicitly focuses on areas that the organisation may have previously neglected’. [9] Scanning is also used to detect weak signals in the environment, before these have conflated into a recognizable pattern, which might affect the organization's competitive environment.
Scanning can include every material published in the media such as television, newspapers and periodicals. [10] This method of scanning is called media-scanning. Product-scanning includes scanning of products which announce re-emerging consumer behaviour. Looking for global trends on the internet can be defined as online-scanning. [11]
Modes of scanning
Four modes of scanning can be distinguished. Francis Joseph Aguilar (1967) differentiates between undirected viewing, conditioned viewing, informal search and formal search.
Environmental scanning is only one component of global environmental analysis. After having identified critical trends and potential events they have to be monitored. The next step in global environmental analysis is called environmental monitoring. It can be defined as 'the process of repetitive observing for defined purposes, of one or more elements or indicators of the environment according to pre-arranged schedules in space and time, and using comparable methodologies for environmental sensing and data collection'. [13] Through environmental monitoring, data about environmental developments are recorded, followed and interpreted. Out of this, historical development changes that are important for the company can be recognized and evaluated. Additionally, the relevance and the reliability of the data sources are tested. Furthermore, it is checked where prognoses are required.
The direction, intensity and speed of environmental trends are explored through environmental forecasting. Especially the search for possible threats is of importance. A prognosis of trends is necessary to get a picture of the future. This is done by adequate methods, like strategic foresight or scenario analysis. [8] Several other methods of forecasting are the following: guessing, rule of thumb, expert judgement, extrapolation, leading indicators, surveys, time-series models and econometric systems. [14]
In the last step of the global environmental analysis, the results of the previous three steps (Scanning, Monitoring, Forecasting) are assessed. The discovered environmental trends are reviewed to estimate the probability of their occurrence. Furthermore, they need to be analyzed to evaluate whether they represent a chance or a risk for the company. The dimension of the chances or risks is also of importance. Moreover, a reaction strategy to the occurring risks or chances needs to be defined. This is done with the help of the Issue-Impact-Matrix, an adequate instrument to evaluate and prioritize trends. The forecasted environmental factors are here classified with respect to their probability of occurrence and their impact on the company. According to their classification, they demonstrate a high, medium or low priority for the company. The factors with a high occurrence probability and a high, significant impact on the company have the highest priority. The higher the priority, the faster need to be reacted to avoid risks and to benefit from chances. [16] The environmental assessment represents the last step of the global environmental analysis.
Fundamental analysis, in accounting and finance, is the analysis of a business's financial statements ; health; competitors and markets. It also considers the overall state of the economy and factors including interest rates, production, earnings, employment, GDP, housing, manufacturing and management. There are two basic approaches that can be used: bottom up analysis and top down analysis. These terms are used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative and technical.
Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities.
Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources to achieve later benefits". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditures and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed cash flow stream.
In finance, technical analysis is an analysis methodology for analysing and forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. As a type of active management, it stands in contradiction to much of modern portfolio theory. The efficacy of technical analysis is disputed by the efficient-market hypothesis, which states that stock market prices are essentially unpredictable, and research on whether technical analysis offers any benefit has produced mixed results. It is distinguished from fundamental analysis, which considers a company's financial statements, health, and the overall state of the market and economy.
Scenario planning, scenario thinking, scenario analysis, scenario prediction and the scenario method all describe a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence.
In strategic management, situation analysis refers to a collection of methods that managers use to analyze an organization's internal and external environment to understand the organization's capabilities, customers, and business environment. The situation analysis can include several methods of analysis such as the 5C analysis, SWOT analysis and Porter's five forces analysis.
In business analysis, PEST analysis describes a framework of macro-environmental factors used in the environmental scanning component of strategic management. It is part of an external environment analysis when conducting a strategic analysis or doing market research, and gives an overview of the different macro-environmental factors to be taken into consideration. It is a strategic tool for understanding market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations.
A pairs trade or pair trading is a market neutral trading strategy enabling traders to profit from virtually any market conditions: uptrend, downtrend, or sideways movement. This strategy is categorized as a statistical arbitrage and convergence trading strategy. Pair trading was pioneered by Gerry Bamberger and later led by Nunzio Tartaglia's quantitative group at Morgan Stanley in the 1980s.
Futures techniques used in the multi-disciplinary field of futurology by futurists in Americas and Australasia, and futurology by futurologists in EU, include a diverse range of forecasting methods, including anticipatory thinking, backcasting, simulation, and visioning. Some of the anticipatory methods include, the delphi method, causal layered analysis, environmental scanning, morphological analysis, and scenario planning.
Technology forecasting attempts to predict the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques. Researchers create technology forecasts based on past experience and current technological developments. Like other forecasts, technology forecasting can be helpful for both public and private organizations to make smart decisions. By analyzing future opportunities and threats, the forecaster can improve decisions in order to achieve maximum benefits. Today, most countries are experiencing huge social and economic changes, which heavily rely on technology development. By analyzing these changes, government and economic institutions could make plans for future developments. However, not all of historical data can be used for technology forecasting, forecasters also need to adopt advanced technology and quantitative modeling from experts’ researches and conclusions.
Context analysis is a method to analyze the environment in which a business operates. Environmental scanning mainly focuses on the macro environment of a business. But context analysis considers the entire environment of a business, its internal and external environment. This is an important aspect of business planning. One kind of context analysis, called SWOT analysis, allows the business to gain an insight into their strengths and weaknesses and also the opportunities and threats posed by the market within which they operate. The main goal of a context analysis, SWOT or otherwise, is to analyze the environment in order to develop a strategic plan of action for the business.
Environmental indicators are simple measures that tell us what is happening in the environment. Since the environment is very complex, indicators provide a more practical and economical way to track the state of the environment than if we attempted to record every possible variable in the environment. For example, concentrations of ozone depleting substances (ODS) in the atmosphere, tracked over time, is a good indicator with respect to the environmental issue of stratospheric ozone depletion.
Stock market prediction is the act of trying to determine the future value of a company stock or other financial instrument traded on an exchange. The successful prediction of a stock's future price could yield significant profit. The efficient market hypothesis suggests that stock prices reflect all currently available information and any price changes that are not based on newly revealed information thus are inherently unpredictable. Others disagree and those with this viewpoint possess myriad methods and technologies which purportedly allow them to gain future price information.
A market analysis studies the attractiveness and the dynamics of a special market within a special industry. It is part of the industry analysis and thus in turn of the global environmental analysis. Through all of these analyses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of a company can be identified. Finally, with the help of a SWOT analysis, adequate business strategies of a company will be defined. The market analysis is also known as a documented investigation of a market that is used to inform a firm's planning activities, particularly around decisions of inventory, purchase, work force expansion/contraction, facility expansion, purchases of capital equipment, promotional activities, and many other aspects of a company.
Market environment and business environment are marketing terms that refer to factors and forces that affect a firm's ability to build and maintain successful customer relationships. The business environment has been defined as "the totality of physical and social factors that are taken directly into consideration in the decision-making behaviour of individuals in the organisation."
Sustainability accounting was originated about 20 years ago and is considered a subcategory of financial accounting that focuses on the disclosure of non-financial information about a firm's performance to external stakeholders, such as capital holders, creditors, and other authorities. Sustainability accounting represents the activities that have a direct impact on society, environment, and economic performance of an organisation. Sustainability accounting in managerial accounting contrasts with financial accounting in that managerial accounting is used for internal decision making and the creation of new policies that will have an effect on the organisation's performance at economic, ecological, and social level. Sustainability accounting is often used to generate value creation within an organisation.
Sustainability measurement is a set of frameworks or indicators to measure how sustainable something is. This includes processes, products, services and businesses. Sustainability is difficult to quantify. It may even be impossible to measure. To measure sustainability, the indicators consider environmental, social and economic domains. The metrics are still evolving. They include indicators, benchmarks and audits. They include sustainability standards and certification systems like Fairtrade and Organic. They also involve indices and accounting. And they can include assessment, appraisal and other reporting systems. These metrics are used over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Sustainability measures include corporate sustainability reporting, Triple Bottom Line accounting. They include estimates of the quality of sustainability governance for individual countries. These use the Environmental Sustainability Index and Environmental Performance Index. Some methods let us track sustainable development. These include the UN Human Development Index and ecological footprints.
The Peren–Clement index is a method of country-specific risk analysis for businesses engaged in international trade and direct investment. This instrument provides a guideline when deciding which foreign markets offer the possibility of additional business engagement and investment and the extent of an existing engagement or investment can be increased or should be reduced.
Corporate foresight has been conceptualised by strategic foresight practitioners and academics working and/or studying corporations as a set of practices, a set of capabilities and an ability of a firm. It enables firms to detect discontinuous change early, interpret its consequences for the firm, and inform future courses of action to ensure the long-term survival and success of the company.
Fashion forecasting began in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It started as a way of communicating about fashion and slowly transformed into a way to become ahead of the times in the fashion industry. Fashion forecasting predicts the moods of society and consumers, along with their behavior and buying habits and bases what they may release in the coming future off of the forecast. Fashion trends tend to repeat themselves every 20 years, and fashion forecasting predicts what other trends might begin with the rotation of fashion as well. Fashion forecasting can be used for many different reasons, the main reason being staying on top of current trends and knowing what your consumer is going to want in the future. This method helps fashion brands know what to expect and what to begin producing ahead of time. Top name brands and high end companies such as Vogue and Gucci even use this method to help their designers become even more informed on what is to come in the fashion industry.
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