The majority of businessmen, managers and workers of the company agree on the relevance of knowing and knowing what is happening in their business environment.
the environmental analysis in a company It is a necessity but at the same time for many it is a chimera or an impossible Grail to realize. But why? For me, the solution is simple.
Scanning the environment in a company consists of shedding light on problems that exist but that we basically did not know or ignore so that we do not have to deal with them.
Why else would he give up his sense of sight? This is precisely what ostriches do when they hide their heads in a hole in the face of danger.
Well, probably to avoid having to face a reality that you don't like.
But fundamentally due to the lack of knowledge to get information, "good information" and when I say good information I mean:
The two points clearly refer to the "How". How to perform the environmental scan without it being an odyssey.
Steps to initiate environmental scanning in a company
The first thing we have to take care of is that this scan of the business environment should be daily. If you read correctly ... every day.
For us to understand each other, we must move from aesthetic and practical static photography of the environment to film recording of our environment.
Regardless, for this to become a reality, we must focus on the quality of the information and the cost of obtaining this quality information as we previously mentioned.
For this to be feasible, the environmental scan can and should be divided into several parts:
- Choose the main subdomain
- Establishment of critical monitoring factors
- Selection of the most correct sources of information
- Automation of the information entry and selection procedure
- Dissemination of content, data and information
The first three are directly related to the quality of the information, while the last two have a direct impact on the cost of the information.
Select the predominant sub-environment for your industry
In general, there are 6 basic areas of an organization's environment to consider.
- Analysis of the economic environment
- Analysis of the technological environment
- Analysis of the political environment
- Analysis of the competitive environment
- Analysis of the regulatory environment
- Analysis of the social environment
From all of them, we must select the most critical sub-environment for our business in order to take the next step.
Determine critical monitoring factors for each sub-environment
Once we have decided which subenvironment is the most relevant, we must think about and choose the indicators we want to measure. It is a difficult job because the construction of each indicator will depend on the quality of the information we have and the frequency of updating.
We still need to determine the critical supervisory factors for our organization.
Identify and choose the most correct fonts
To begin, we must revisit those that we consult daily or more frequently.
In general, they are good candidates to take them into account and in principle they will serve us to nurture our critical monitoring factors.
Whatever the case, we will also need to incorporate new sources or at least take a look abroad to ensure we get the most complete information through the integration of new sources that we did not know.
If you don't know where to start when choosing the sources to incorporate into your environmental analysis, I recommend that you take a look at these posts:
Both posts will give you a clear idea of where to start.
Automate the information entry and selection procedure
This step is one of the most critical.
In institutions where they cannot automate the procedure, discouragement due to the work that it entails spreads and, in conclusion, the effort invested does not exceed the costs.
Being able to automate the entire procedure is a great saving of time and money, since it allows you to be updated on all changes and alert you to any possibility or threat in the environment. If necessary, contact experts in the field. Remember that you cannot do everything alone and that there are competitive intelligence systems prepared for this purpose.
The good news is that if your company and organization does not require access to deep sources on the Internet, you can use Spunge to automate the procedure for capturing and selecting information from the surface Internet.
If you click on the link above, I will explain how.
Deliver content to our internal and external customers
Once the entire procedure has been tested and in place, it is important that all the evidence collected reaches the right people inside and outside the organization. If not, what good is it to get the best information without sharing or disseminating it throughout the organization?
To conclude, you can take a look at this checklist of environmental scanning tasks in an enterprise to make sure you are moving in the right direction.
The paradox of information and environmental analysis in a company
We have repeatedly commented on how we are experiencing a paradoxical information situation.
On the one hand, we have more and more information, but on the other hand, it is increasingly difficult to keep up with the news and developments that are developing around you, both personally and professionally.
This is the direct consequence of what we call infoxication.
To all this is added:
- More and more disruptive innovations,
- New economic models,
- Hybridization of sectors that give rise to new ones ...
This is a sign that the competitive reality is changing rapidly and that it is increasingly difficult to keep up.
This has a direct impact on the way in which we confidently approach the analysis of our environment.
And the solution is that it is no longer valid to carry out an analysis every 5 years, but the new circumstances lead us to practice an analysis of the daily business environment, as we mentioned previously in this post.
