Importance of environmental analysis
Introduction
No single organization can exist in a vacuum. For a successful business operation, an organisation needs to interact with various other actors and players around it. These may range from political institutions to other business and financial institutions. These institutions are called environment of an organisation. In this assignment, we would try to illustrate the importance of environmental analysis for a business organisation.
The conceptualisation of environment holds the central position in this discussion. Thompson uses the term ‘operating or task environment, or inner layer’ for immediate or internal environment (Thompson, 1997). It relates to that domain where staff from one organisation interacts with people from others in their day to day business relationships (Douglas Brownlie, 1994b). Brownlie employs the term ‘remote or general environment, or outer layer’ for external or macro environment (Douglas Brownlie, 1994b). This refers to those factors which are outside of company’s direct control but have significant direct and indirect influence on company’s operations.
For a company to be successful, it needs to be fully aware of its environment as it allows an organisation to respond to the needs and requirements in its environment. ‘Whilst organisational decision makers may wish to believe that they are the masters/mistresses of their organisation’s destinies, in reality that destiny is shaped by governments, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders, including competitors’.(Roger Cartwright, 2002)
The starting point here is the conceptualisation of environment. By environment we mean those, ‘factors which are not only outside the system’s control, but which determine, in part how the system performs’ (Churchman, 1968). These factors are termed as internal and external factors and ‘exert direct or