Executive Summary
This report contains an analysis of major internal and external environmental factors affecting Actopen, and especially how the organization is positioning itself to deal with these factors.
Actopen is a wholly owned subsidiary of AXIGEN Corporation, a conglomerate listed on the Zimbabwe stock exchange. Major shareholders of AXIGEN are seated at corporate office, which share the same building as Actopen. This geographical closeness, together with uncertainty in the Zimbabwe environment has prompted continuous and frequent shareholder interest in the short-run activities of the business.
In this brief, an analysis of the external (mega) environment was done using the PECLIST model. The task environment was appraised
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(Writing Instruments Market Index. June 2005, p. 3)
The organization’s value chain. is also important. Please refer to appendix 1 for a complete value chain for Actopen. Inbound logistics is dominated by plastics raw material which are all imported. Operations are characterized by injection molding of components, ink filling and subsequent manual assembly into finished product. The outbound logistics function is owned for Harare deliveries only. Marketing and sales, as well as product support are conducted in-house. Support activities of the value chain comprise of human resources, research and development, procurement, machinery and buildings. The company employs 150 employees of which 10 are managerial and 140 are non-managerial.
The Environment Defined
The environment of an organization can be defined as “ ….. the pattern of all the external conditions and influences that affect its life and development” (Mintzberg and Quinn (1991), p. 47.) For a holistic approach adopted in this report, it is necessary to add the internal conditions on the definition. The full scope of the environment impacting on an organization has both internal and external conditions always at play to present opportunities and threats to an organization. Thus the environment is classified into three main realms namely: macro/ mega environment, task/ industry environment and internal/ micro environment.
Figure 1: Composition of a business environment.
(Source: Adapted from
When manipulating a business’s strategy, it is important to focus on the external factors in the environment. An external analysis is where a business conducts environmental scanning that present a company with the key external forces influencing the organization. The facets of external forces examined are the business environment, remote environment, or the competitive environment. A business environment is all of the external factors in the general environment that a firm cannot control, but can affect their strategy. The remote environment is the forces that affect most firms. Lastly, a competitive environment is the firm’s specific industry and its entirety. The external analysis is pertinent to a company called Dick’s Drive- In; without it, Dick’s would not be a thriving popular business today.
An organization’s external environment is terribly important and must be studied and understood for the organization to truly succeed. Through such study and understanding, a manager would be able “mitigate threats and leverage opportunities” that are caused by the six segments identified as macro-level external forces: (1) political, (2) economic, (3) sociocultural, (4) technological, (5) ecological, and (6) legal (Rothaermel, 2013, pp. 56-57). Since the manager’s decisions, or firm effects, have a greater impact than those external forces mentioned only when the manager accounts for them and builds a strategy around them, the manager must be aware of and understand these forces to be
There are many external and internal factors that impact the planning functions of management. We must all be mindful of these factors because they could have an enormous impact on organizations productivity. The process of assessing the external and internal factors that an organization will face can be vital to the planning function of management. One must determine a set of issues and constraints and then list the assumptions that will impact the implementation of the plan. The environmental assessment develops understanding of external and internal processes that influence the organizations success rate. The purpose of the environmental assessment is to identify and analyze the key trends, forces,
The environment of any organization consists of internal and external factors. An organization should conduct a scan of its environment in order for it to determine development, and a forecast on the factors that may influence the success of the organization. Scanning the environment refers to the possession and utilization of the information that an organization has about trends, patterns, occasion and the external and internal relationship that are within an organization. A scan of the environment may assist the management team of an organization in making a decision about the future path of the
33 8. What strategic issues need to be addressed? 34 9. External environmental analysis 35 10. Internal environment analysis 60 11.
It will also include procurement of a head count of employees, material and media management through advertisement and partnership. It also pertains how to attain low cost and high volume production, level of employee involvement in daily running of the activities of Aber Corporation. Furthermore it involves regular auditing of accounting books to minimize accounting errors, workforce training through seminars to keep them at par with dynamics in the global business world, diversification and portfolio planning and analysis of the political, economic, social and technological changes (Ernest, 2001).
It is defined as all the forces or conditions that are available within an environment that affects an organization and business. It is also known as controllable factors because business can control them. The internal environment deals with the management of resources like human resources, physical resources, technology, monetary resources and others that constitute the organization in order to implement or execute a strategy. Internal environment also includes culture and other intangible aspects like teamwork, coordination, efficiency level of employees, employee’s salaries and monitoring costs. The strategy for competition should also be in sync with the internal resources especially the internal environment.
The market environment consists of both the macro environment and the micro environment. On macro environment the firm need to follow it and they can’t to control it. It consist variety of external factors that is economic, social, political, legal and technological. In the macro environment the firm should analyze national political issues, culture and climate, key macroeconomic conditions, health and indicators (such as economic growth, inflation, unemployment, etc.), social trends/attitudes, and the nature of technology's impact on its society and the business processes within the society. The microenvironment refers to the internal environment of the company such as consumer/customer, Supplier, competitors, the media (public) and in
In this term of our discussion we’re talking about business environment. It’s like an overview of the whole business environment. Simply environment of a business means the external forces including the business decisions. They can be forces of economic, social, political and technological factors.
To assure the success of a business over a long period of time the business must be able to conduct regular analysis of their success. They must be able to determine where they are today and have a goal of where they would like to see themselves 5-10 years down the road. In order to conduct a true analysis of the company, one must complete an environmental scan of their organization. Thus scanning for events, trends, issues and expectations that they may be faced with in the future. Furthermore, examining all internal and external environment challenges. Internal environmental challenges may be with employees, shareholders or board of directors or the overall culture of the organization. External environmental
In today's world, no business operates in isolation without interacting with the environment where it operates. Irrespective of the nature of business whether public or private organization; manufacturing; service industry; local or international firm, its operations are inhibited by the environment in which it operates.
Organizations need to be aware of what is going on in their environments that might concern them, and more so, during the planning process. Diverse but overlapping environments ought to be monitored; the macro environment, the industrial environment, the competitive environment, and the organization’s internal environment (Ginter, 2013; Pfeiffer, 1986). At Rapha AL, my chosen organization, the environmental scanning will include distinct internal and external factors that would enable Rapha gain excellent understanding of the current and emerging issues that might affect it, and inspire the setting of clear and achievable goals. In this paper, I will analyze and address the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT); discuss current and prospective customers and evaluate the impact of environmental factors on the organization’s effectiveness to achieve the established goals within the strategic plan. Furthermore, I will address evolving external issues that could influence the strategic plan, evaluate the benefits of competitive analysis and Rapha’s capacity to achieve the strategic goals and objectives in a 3-year strategic plan.
Organizational Environment: those forces outside its boundaries that can impact it. Forces can change over time and are made up of Opportunities and Threats. (7)
Organisations scan environmental information and use it for planning, decision making and control. Organisations transmit information to several internal and external agencies like govt., investors, trade unions and professional bodies. For any organization, the environment consists of the set of external conditions and forces that have the potential to influence the organization. In the case of Subway, for example, the environment contains its customers, its rivals such as McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, social trends such as the shift in society toward healthier eating, political entities such as the US Congress, and many additional conditions and forces. It is useful to break the concept of the environment down into two components. The general environment (or macroenvironment) includes overall trends and events in society such as social
As the name suggests, “internal” business environment refers to internal factors and resources that affect the running of the business. This primarily includes the workforce where the employees play a vital role in affecting company’s performance. If a company has well trained or motivated employees, that company is likely to get good output from them. However, if the same company recruits unmotivated employees who do not perform well or dig in their heels when a new plan arrived, this will affect that company’s production levels and ultimately hinder its profitability. Another factor to consider is all the capabilities that a company possesses. The tool used to monitor them is the resource based