Environmental Scan Paper

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.

Apple Inc. commonly known as Apple has effectively managed to be a successful company in a very competitive consumer electronics industry by been innovative and differentiating the company’s products with similar products in the markets by offering high quality products and good customer service while the actual manufacturing of the products is outsourced to trusted third party suppliers. On a wider perspective, the company has set high standards that even the company itself has to be on its level best to maintain the standards that it has set. Over the last few years, the consumer electronics market has

Analyze the external and internal environment for opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses that impact the firm’s competitiveness.

These values are: place the customer experience at the core of what they do, be committed to their people, believe in the McDonald’s system, operate their business ethically, give back to the community, grow their business profitably and lastly strive to continually improve.

Obviously, customer is the core purpose as well as the reason for McDonald’s existence in society. McDonald’s aims to provide a superior value in products and service to satisfy its customers’ expectation. However, this mission statement has not mentioned about how well it serves the other stakeholders

The basis for the entire business is ethical, truthful and dependable. It takes time to build reputation. McDonald’s has developed a successful strategy for operating their fast-food enterprise across the globe. This strategy has been one that is developed based on existing operation as well as the local cultures and customs

Internal environment Combined with the knowledge of its external environment, a firm analysing its internal environment, in particular its resources, capabilities and core competencies, is able to create its vision, mission and implement its strategies for obtaining a sustainable competitive advantage (Hanson et al., 2008). It is argued by Berman, Down & Hill (2002) that only the sound combination of firm’s unique tangible and intangible resources provides a basis for competitive

REFERENCES•www.mcdonalds.com, accessed on 18 July, 2008•www.mcdonldsindia.net, accessed on 18 July, 2008•en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's, accessed on 19 July, 2008•http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/263943/mcdonalds_strategic_marketing_mix.html?cat=4, accessed on 19 July, 2008•www.kfc.com, accessed on 25 August, 2008

For McDonald’s they have many aims and objectives such as they’re committed to providing quality food quickly that their customers can trust with the best possible service, showing clear career paths to their

Through an internal environment analysis, companies can identify and understand their own unique resources, capabilities, and competencies that are required for their sustainable competitive advantage. Resources, capabilities, and core competencies are the foundation of competitive advantage. There is no competitive advantages are permanently sustainable in any companies, so they have to consist on their current advantages and develop new advantages by internally understanding and analyzing their resources and capabilities. Competitors have their own unique resources, capabilities, and core competencies to create values for their customers. Both tangible and intangible resources, which include individual, social and organizational phenomena, are combined to generate capabilities. In turn, company’s capabilities are used to build core competencies. Also, core competencies are as a source of competitive advantage for a company to win in the competitive market.

Environmental scanning is an overarching term encompassing the monitoring, evaluation, and dissemination of information relevant to the organizational development of a strategy (Wheelen, Hunger, & Hoffman, Bamford, 2015,). The use of an environmental scan can analyze the competitive advantage of a company, evaluate the strategies a company uses to gain an advantage over their competitors and create value and examine the measurement guidelines and the effectiveness of those guidelines to authenticate strategic effectiveness. Researchers have found a definite connection between profits and environmental scanning.

The golden arches are one of the most recognizable logos on the planet. McDonald’s is one of the biggest food companies in the world which does not seem hard to believe since they have served over a billion people. When someone goes to McDonald’s they come through the door expecting a certain quality of service and food. McDonald’s goal is to meet the guest expectations to build customer loyalty. With over 35,000 restaurants in 118 different countries, McDonald’s has created a very detailed and thought out code of ethics so that employees represent the company in a favorable manner.

A firm’s superior performance is contingent upon a sustainable competitive strategy and a firm’s strategy refers to ‘a set of actions that its manager takes to outperform its competitors and achieve superior profitability’ (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland, 2016, p.3). A strategy becomes sustainable when it produces enduring success that can support the company’s consistent growth. The designing of a strategy entails the understanding the company’s present situation which are comprised of two distinct facets: external environment and internal environment (Thompson et al., 2016). It is generally accepted that the performance of a company is accelerated when the strategy encompasses the alignment of both external and internal environments of a company (Kaplan & Norton, 2008; Maier & Pop, 2012). In spite of this consensus, there is a longstanding debate regarding whether external or internal environment has greater influence on the company’s performance (Wit, 2010). For some logical perspectives, it is favored that a firm’s internal environment has greater influence on the firm’s performance than external environment. In alignment with the argument, pertinent strategic concepts and theories are analyzed along with the example of a company, Toyota Motor Corporation. This argumentative essay flows starting with a brief overview of Toyota Motor Corporation and then the arguments along with the concepts of resource and capability analysis, SWOT analysis and value chain

Since McDonald’s is the most well know fast food chain in the world with a market cap of 69.35 billion, brand recognition is their biggest strength. The secret of McDonald’s success is its willingness to innovate and maintain consistency in the operation of its many outlets. In recent years McDonald’s has introduced Premium Salads, Snack Wraps, fresh Apple Dippers in the United States, and Corn Cups in China. Also, McDonald 's products are priced so low that economic conditions are almost insignificant.

Every successful organization uses the five management functions; but not many can compare with the United States Armed Forces. I am currently serving in the United States Air Force and this organization has effectively applied the five management functions, because its existence depends on those five functions. From the initial planning to the final execution steps, we perform all five functions in our day-to-day operations in flawless manners and pride ourselves in the job well done. The Air Force is constantly engaging in the five management functions; their operations are well led, organized, carefully planned, staffed, and constantly evaluated. I do not believe there is any organization other than the military where you would see these five functions linking so well coordinated.