Business Environment Analysis | Objectives & Process
Table of Contents
Objectives of Business Environmental Analysis
Business Environmental analysis has three basic objectives, which are as follows:
1. Help understanding Existing Environment
It is important that one must be aware of the existing environment. Business Environment analysis should provide an understanding of current and potential changes taking place in the micro environment. Micro environment specifies the type of products to be offered, the technology to be adopted and the productive strategies to be used to face the global competition.
2. Provision of Data for Strategic Decision-making
Business Environment analysis should provide necessary data for strategic decision-making. Mere collection of data is not adequate. The data so collected must be used for strategic decision-making.
3. Facilitating Strategic Linking in Organizations
Business Environment analysis should facilitate and foster strategic linking in organizations.
Process of Business Environment Analysis
The process of Business environment analysis involves many steps, which are as follows:
- Collection of necessary information.
- Scanning and searching of information.
- Getting information by spying.
- Forecasting the conditions.
- Observing the environment.
- Assessing.
We shall now discuss each one of them briefly.
1. Collection of necessary Information
Collection of necessary information is the first stage in the process of business environment analysis. It involves the observation of various factors prevailing in a particular area also. If an environment is to be analyzed, written as well as the verbal information from various sources with regard to the elements of environment for that particular business is to be collected first.
2. Scanning and Searching of Information
Scanning and searching is an important technique of business environment analysis. Once the necessary information has been collected, it should be put to scanning. Besides, the search for other relevant information also continues. This technique gives results as to the hypothesis already established. This helps the analyst to know as to what are the conditions prevailing for a particular business at a time.
3. Getting Information by Spying
Spying is also one of the techniques of business environment analysis. When the activities of a particular business are to be analyzed and such information cannot be collected by traditional methods, the technique of spying is resorted to. This happens especially when business rivalry exists. Mostly, this technique is used to collect competitive information.
4. Forecasting the Conditions
Scanning provides a picture about the past and the present. However, strategic decision-making requires a future orientation. Forecasting is the scientific guesswork based upon some serious study. So it helps to know how a business in particular and conditions in society in general are going to take shape.
5. Observing the Environment
One can analyze a business environment by merely observing it. The observation reveals various conditions prevailing at a particular point of time. This is helpful in understanding the existing environment in its entirety so that suitable decisions can be taken.
6. Assessing
Assessment is made to determine implications for the organization’s current and potential strategies. Assessment involves identifying and evaluating how and why current and projected environmental changes affect or will affect strategic management of the organization. It aims at answering questions, like what are the key issues presented by the environment? what are the implications of such issues for the organization?
