STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Environmental Scanning System

Environmental Scanning System

Introduction

Environmental scanning is the first phase in strategic management.  This is where monitoring, evaluation, and dissemination of information from external and internal environments to key people within the corporation such as stakeholders exist.  A company may look at internal environments such as opportunities and strengths as well as external environments such as threats and weaknesses.  Often time's economic, technological and political forces are also examined during an environmental scan. Organizations use environmental scans to establish competitive advantages and thus determine how to align their competitive advantages with the organization's strategic plans (PAPP, 2001, pp.25-45).

The company I have chosen for the report is “Apple”. Apple is in the business of designing, manufacturing, and marketing mobile communication devices, personal computers (PCs), and video players and portable digital music. Apple also offers a huge range of associated services, software, networking solutions and peripherals. Apple is also providing the service of online distribution music; for the third party, music videos, audio books, television shows, short films, etc. (Calderon, 2007, Pp. 12)

1. Environmental Scanning Process

Environmental scanning helps companies to identify the external and internal environment and use the information to create competitive advantage within the environment. The activities involve identifying the competitive advantage of the company, creating SWOT and implementing the strategies in the environment.

Competitive advantage

Apple has a strategic advantage over its rivals that make it achieve high sales and retain more customers. It has a greater competitive advantage in technology industry of UK and is one of the market leaders in the market. Apple creates value in its products and services that enable the company to stay ahead of the competition.

Apple Inc. was established in 1976. The company design and market various electronic devices including softwares, computers, ipad, ipod and iphone. The major competitive advantage is its effective marketing strategies and valuable customer service. The main purpose of the company is to improve the lifestyle of customers by offering new technology products and services. The product line is very small because the focus of Apple is to sell those product6s which generate high profits (PAPP, 2001, pp.25-45).

SWOT Analysis

The second activity involves creating SWOT analysis of the company by analyzing external and internal factors that affect the operations of the company. By analyzing the environment, a company can make strategic planning for future needs. Apple does its environmental scanning on a continual basis in order to stay ahead of the competition. Conducting environmental scanning requires a team consists of various experts within the organization. The expert's positions may include: mid-level managers, employees within the company, and front line supervisors. The specific selection of the team members is done to identify problematic issues that may affect the company (Barney, 2005, pp. 99-120).

Once the team is formed each member is responsible for one or more internal or external factors. The team creates a list of factors and collects relevant data accordingly. The external source of data includes demographic, geographic, economic conditions, technology information and various industry analyses that ...