Environmental Analysis

1
Environmental Analysis

• MHR 308
• July 23, 2002

2
Two External Environments

• The Task Environment
• Industry analysis
• Competitors and competitive analysis
• Market analysis (customers)

• General Environment
• Demographic
• Economic
• Political/legal
• Regulatory/legislative
• Technological
• Socio-cultural
• Lifestyles, attitudes

3
Why Must We Do This?

• Businesses dont exist in a vacuum
• Whats changing out there could affect us
• Unforeseen competition could wipe us out
• Unforeseen costs could cripple us
• So could a downturn in the economy
• Lets not talk about a new regulation to comply
  with
• We need to get a sense of changes that might
  occur in the next five years

4
How Is the Analysis Done?

• Through doing research
• The Internet
• Articles in the Business Press (Internet again)
• Trade publications and people in the industry
• Hiring competitive-intelligence professionals
• For information you simply cannot get
• Make informed/educated guesses
• Make inferences
• Go to the next topic

5
Got Questions?

• Ask me
• I may not know the answer but may know where to
  look
• I have many books and resources in my office
• I may know other profs that could help
• Ask other profs or knowledgeable people you may
  know

6
Writing the Paper

• Use an outline
• If you have nothing to say under a particular
  heading, omit it
• Use only those headings where you can show data
  or analysis that will be useful in planning for
  your business
• Remember to reserve a fair amount of time for
  editing, editing, editing

7
Questions?