ASSIGNMENT

External Environment and Change Driver Analysis of Siemens



External Environment and Change Driver Analysis of Siemens

Introduction

From a humble beginning from a small back building workshop in Berlin to a large global conglomerate, Siemens is one of the very few industrial companies that have thrived over the years in terms of its growth and the business industries it operates in. Having a rich history spanning over one hundred and seventy years, Siemens operates in over one hundred and ninety countries around the world, comprising of a total workforce of over three hundred and sixty thousand employees. The company announced global revenue worth one hundred and twenty billion dollars for the fiscal period of 2011. In the United Kingdom alone, the company employs over thirteen thousand employees and last year announced the regional profit of over three billion dollars alone. Hence, it can be assessed that Siemens is a global leading engineering and technology services company that provides innovative solutions to help tackle many of world's major challenges through its operations in the key global sectors of energy, infrastructure, industry and healthcare, building a strong repute of itself for being a trailblazer corporate brand providing quality products, services and solutions (www.siemens.co.uk).

This assignment aims to present a critical analysis of Siemens external environment, along with highlighting some of its key drivers of change and their impact on the Human Resource dimension of the organization in the following sections of this paper.

Discussion

External Environment Analysis of Siemens

Babatunde & Adebisi (2012) comments that external environment of any organization is composed of various factors that have a great impact on its performance and behavior. This impact can be both direct and indirect for the organization. Conversely, when analyzing a business's external environment, it is prudent to analyze it from a macro and micro perspective as this allows a realistic diagnosis for the organization, from which the business managers can derive lessons and implement it in the company's future business decisions and strategies.

In addition, for any business to formulate its long-term business policies it is mandatory to take account of external opportunities and threats, internal potential and weaknesses and its competitive standing in the industry it operates. This is part of the company's macro and micro external business environment analysis. Thus, for the purposes of macro and micro discussion of Siemens external environment, the tools of PEST and SWOT analysis would be implied to provide a comprehensive discussion.

PEST Analysis

This particular analytical tool acts as a strong framework for all business organizations to develop strategies to mitigate risk in fulfilling their business goals and objectives specially if considering expanding their operations internationally. Developed by a Harvard University Professor Aguilar, this tool is useful for identifying possible business threats ahead of time, along with helping the business to take the appropriate direction for change in their business environment. In addition, this tool also helps in avoiding investing in risky or unprofitable projects along with helping the company to expand its operations in foreign markets ...