The Importance of External Factors: The Needs and Expectations of Stakeholders

As for external factors one of the external factors would be perhaps a new law that is given and affects directly or indirectly the business and that business needs to make some changes.

The external environment of an organization represents factors outside the company that affect the company's ability to function. The business cannot control these aspects but can answer to these changes if it needed. Of course the main problem for business managers is to manage to respond early to these changes in the external environment, but this depends on how soon any change is identified. Most of external environmental factors for example, economic conditions, are reported daily in the media; managers have a wealth of information with the help of which they can develop strategic plans. Nevertheless, some external factors are difficult to identify, especially when they are changing very slowly or hidden from

Marks and Spencer has many external forces that affect the company. These are known as macro environmental factors. There are six of these forces, Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors. These external factors affect the types of products/services Marks and Spencer offers, the nature of its market positioning and strategies, there relationship with their customers and their suppliers. These external factors allow Marks and Spencer to develop:

There are two types of social factors that can affect a business; there is external affects and internal affects. Internal affects are about demographics and lifestyle whereas external is about social costs and benefits

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

The external environment affects a firm’s strategic actions. Essentially, if a company decision has created a disaster in the environment, they

Examples of influences are when Government makes changes to the law. By not following and adapting to the changes, can result in business closure or prison sentences. A business which is looking for improvements, will deliver the same service or product for less price. If the business is not cutting down the prices, it can lead to customers going elsewhere as well as when the organisation is not looking for innovation and for improving its products.

On the other hand, an external scan of the organization’s environment shows that the company is competitive in the market. The company is able to satisfy its customers as required. There are other competitors in the market that offer stiff competition to the organization. This is a threat to the company. The company has opportunities as well such as expanding its market to the international level. An external scan of the environment is able to provide the external opportunities and threat that the company has.

In every company, they deal with internal and external factors that affect every day business. External factors include oil price change, new laws and regulations for building codes, food distribution and many more. Companies that wish to succeed in their business should try and anticipate these internal and external factors. By identifying a companies opportunities and threats, a company can protect themselves from future harm and take advantage of opportunities that they have prepared for. Analyzing the opportunities and threats can be crucial for a company to turn a profit, expand the company across the country, and bring in and keep new and old customers.

Internal influence: They are factors which businesses have some degree of control like location, management and business culture.

External influences cover a wide variety of factors, and their influence can differ between business types. These include the following:

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

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.

Factors that happen in the external environment are known as external factors or influences. These will affect the main internal functions of the business and possibly the objectives of the business and its strategies. The main factor that affects most business is the degree of competition - how fiercely other businesses compete with the products that another business makes. The other factors that can affect the business are: