Environmental Scan Paper

Environmental Scan Paper Desmond Harris University of Phoenix MGT498 Strategic Management Eligah Hunter

Environmental Scan Paper

Abstract
Understanding an environmental scanning of an organization is to monitor, evaluate, and disseminate every part of the external and internal environments for the key personal involve in the organization. The scan is performed by the strategic managers involve in the organizations and is the tool for avoiding strategic surprises and to help ensure the organizations long-term health, profit, and strategies. The research will describe the internal and external environments of two well-known organizations Office Depot, and Proctor and Gamble. Define each organizations values; sustain competitive advantages through strategies, and effectiveness in the measurement guidelines in each organization. Each organization uses different types of environmental scanning tools to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the two organizations.

External and Internal Environmental Scanning

The understanding in this scan is toward the importance for organizations to identify with the external environmental scanning of an organization information gathering. Through different analysis like environmental, SWOT, and PESTEL the organizations opportunities and threats can be evaluate for variables in the natural, societal, and task environments and is an important factor for the organizations operations. An organizations societal environment involves mankinds social system and is a general force that can influence the long-run of an organizations decision-making and can affect multiple industries like economic forces, technological forces, political-legal forces and socio-cultural forces. The task environment has a direct effect toward an organizations operations and in turn can be affected by governments, local communities, suppliers, competitors, customers, creditors, employees, labor unions, special-interest groups, and trade associations. The importance of the task environment is toward

Environmental Scan Paper

awareness for hindering the industries operations in key factors within the corporations task environments and can be bested handle by incorporating an industry analysis. The importance of the industry analysis allows organizations to monitor and detect the strategic factors involved in the natural, societal, and task environments. This also provides a stronger future, addresses changes, resource availability, costs, growth, and decline of particular industries. Another issue that organizations have to be aware of is the sustainability of the originations carbon footprint; by scanning the societal environments. Organizations can incorporate a useful tool known as a STEEP an or PESTEL analysis to monitor the trends involved in the societal and natural environments. Using the STEEP or PESTEL analysis provides a scanning process to address the different trends impacting change in business in geographic regions involving sociocultural, technological, economic, ecological, and political-legal environmental forces. As organizations move into global issues environmental scanning and industry analysis is a very important in identifying any potential markets that an organization want to integrate in developing nations. The use of several types of analysis can be incorporate in the selection of strategic factors in societal environment to pointout opportunities and threats that in areas like markets, community, competitor, supplier, interest group, and government. By addressing external strategic factors allows the organization the opportunity to respond to environmental changes and the use of an issues priority matrix is a tool that can help decide a scanning for the differences in the monitoring factors. Another approach that an organization can use to gain competitive advantage in an industry is the Porter approach this assists with competitive strategy. It is important as well for an organization to understand and identify the external environment by identify external strategic factors so the organization can respond to the environmental changes. This has a direct effect toward the position the organization want to be in

Environmental Scan Paper

and incorporate the competitive intelligence to provide techniques like forecasting, strategic auditing, and external factors analysis summary can help with the competitive advantages and changes in the competition. Looking into the two organizations picked in this paper; surely several of these external environmental scanning methods can be describe as strategic success for the two organizations strategies. The internal environmental scanning is a vital part of an organizations internal strategic factors and growth because it allows organizations to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses in an organization performance. The internal scanning is also an organizational analysis that identifies the structure in the chain of command, develops the organizations culture referring to the beliefs, expectations, and values the organization need for success. It also provides the importance of organizational resources, assets, skills, competencies, and knowledge.

Procter and Gamble

The Procter and Gamble organization is a fortune 500 multinational corporation and is a manufacturer in the consumer goods industry and serves consumers in more than 180 counties. The organization follows an ethical corporate citizenship with a purpose for opportunities that offers several types of consumer goods to the ecology and socio-cultural environment. According to Procter and Gamble (2011) Purpose statement articulates a common goal that inspires us daily. The strategy that the company uses is a common cause and growth strategy that promotes a simple idea to improve the lives of the worlds consumers and defines a commercial opportunity, culture, branded products, and service. The organizations operations are categorize into two global business units and divided into business segments that include beauty, grooming, health care, snacks, pet care, fabric care, home care, and family home care segments.

Environmental Scan Paper

Internal and external Environmental Scanning

The organization uses an environmental analysis for the internal and external environment; with a focus toward technological factors that include change, new and improve distribution channels, improved communication, knowledge translation, and moral factors. The organization has used a scanning toward the task environment to analyze the different parts and involvements of various individual within the organization through reports from the various societal environments. Each brand management teams work with the key people from the strategic factors entailing opportunities and threats through the individual segments reports and is the way the organization performs the external strategic factors. The company purpose is to build people driven innovation for growth in Procter and Gamble; fulfilling a purpose with innovative products that can improve peoples lives in small but meaningful ways Procter and Gamble, (2011). The organizations strengths follow a five core strengths requirement that has been trying to win the consumer products industry by design and leadership in five areas. The first is through consumer understanding to uncover the unarticulated needs of consumers. Through Procter and Gamble market research opportunities has allowed the organization to interact with more than five million consumers in 100 countries. With at least 20, 000 research studies every year the organization has invested 440 million annually into consumer understanding and has helped the company identify their opportunities for innovation, better serve, and communicate with consumers. The second is through innovation that translates consumer desires into new products. The third is through brand building that shapes purpose that inspires and can benefit the organizations driven brands. The fourth is a go-to-market capabilities that reaches retailers

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and consumers at the right place and time. The fifth is a scale that drives efficiency and consumer values. An environmental analysis has been use to determine the macro-environment that the organization operations from and has no direct influence toward the broad environment; the organization can be shield from most threats while taking advantage of opportunities when presented. As long as the organization is in tune to the external environment it can plan strategically for the external environmental needs or wants through what the organization has to offer. Procter and Gamble operates in about 180 countries and serves every age, genders, ethnicity, and social classes. The population is continually increasing, and this will provide Procter and Gamble with opportunity to continuously increase products that they sell each year. A new opportunity exists through emerging markets in the regions of Asia and Latin America and presents a continuous sign for growth in the number of potential targeting markets. The United States happens to have the largest economy in the world, and the nations is still currently going through and trying recover from an economic recession. The unemployment rates is very low and declines in the value of housing is still in the red; making consumer spending a major impact toward people willing to spend money. The organization uses the current United States economic indicator to indicate value for inflation, GDP growth, and unemployment rates. The organization also uses an industry analysis to determine issues of global household, personal product use, market size, growth rates, competitive rivalry, product differentiation, product innovation, demand drivers, technological change, and industry trends. A five force analysis is use to determine threats in the industry following a summary. The use of a competitor analysis help to determine the market positions involving rivals occupy, strategic

Environmental Scan Paper

group mapping for competition, competitors strategies, strengths, and weaknesses of competitors, next moves, and companies in relation to the rivals summary.

Office Depot
Office Depot Incorporated is a global supplier of office products and services and is a leading environment in office supply industry. The organizations fiscal year of 2010 it sold $11.6 billion of products and services to consumers and businesses of all sizes through our three business segments and these segment include; North American Retail Division, North American Business Solutions Division and International Division. According to Office Depot (2011) Sales are processed through multiple channels, consisting of office supply stores, a contract sales force, an outbound telephone account management sales force, internet sites, direct marketing catalogs and call centers. The organization seems to follow operation through a supported network of supply chain facilities and delivery operations.

Internal and external environmental scanning

The organization uses a marketing slogan that says Taking care of business it is the inspiration for the organization to follow a new direction in the retailer industry. Office Depot also provides more office products and services to customers in globally than any other company in their industry. Unlike the organizations competitors the organization environment is run under a corporate citizenship and environmental stewardship. The organization has created value and has sustained a competitive advantage through commitment for implementing a global strategy to increasingly buy-green, be green, and sell green. The organizations strategy comes from the inspiration involve in the mission to pursue a volume pre-certification under the LEED portfolio program that serve as the stores prototype design. This also is supported by the

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organizations environmental policy focusing on implementation and open approach to engaging stakeholders. The organization measures effectiveness through its environmental performance indicators and determining that the organizations facilities in North America total more than 39 million square feet. The commercial real estate poses environmental factors were responsible for significant carbon emissions and contained solid waste footprint. The environmental, legal, ecology factors and potential suppliers involve in Office Depot. The use of a PESTEL analysis to scan the environmental issues of waste disposal, pollution monitoring, product safety, affects in the firm production process. The use of an environmental dashboard and environmental key performance indicators to summaries data and allow the organization to evaluate objectivities, initiatives for buying green products from functional owners through certification letters. The organization has also incorporated environmental goals through environmental performance goals to be more direct in the environmental solutions. In acknowledgement of the environment strategy that Office Depot is pursuing to be an environmental leader the organization supports the internal and external scanning with four main reasons. According to Office Depot (2011)

We care about taking care of the planet and want to reduce our environmental footprint; We consider our environmental strategy to be a business strategy that helps us attract and retain customers who are interested in going green;

We listen to our customers and aim to serve their growing environmental needs; and

Environmental Scan Paper

We know that our operational environmental initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint or waste outputs often save costs and drive long-term operational improvement

Conclusion
In both organizations the internal and external environments create value for the companies that make the organizations sustain a competitive advantage in their industries that seems to follow the strategy of each business. The way that they measure the guidelines collaborates with the strategic goals and is very effective for the business objectives and performance of each organization. It would seem that the organizations have done each environmental scan for the businesses through several analysis tool and techniques that could reveal measurement guidelines that have been very effective for the businesses long-term and future position.

Environmental Scan Paper

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References
Office Depot, (2011). Company Facts Retrieved November 28 2011 from http://www.officedepot.com/specialLinks.do?file=/companyinfo/companyfacts/index.jsp&te mplate=companyInfo Office Depot, (2011). Environmental strategy Retrieved November 28 2011 from http://www.officedepot.cc/environment/ Procter and Gamble, (2011). Purpose and people. Core strengths Retrieved November 28 2011 from http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/index.shtml Procter and Gamble, (2011). Yahoo news network, business summary Retrieved November 28 2011 from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=PG+Profile Wheelen, T. L., & Hunger, J. D. (2010). Concepts in strategic management and business policy: Achieving sustainability (12th ed.). Retrieved November 28 2011 from Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.