Environmental scanning involves going through large amount of information to detect emerging trends and creating a set of scenarios. It is further defines, gathers and interprets pertinent information and introduces new findings in the organization for strategic decision making. The environment scanning process for Ariat Corporation will utilize the Pestle environmental analysis tool. Through this stool, the environment will be analyzed politically, economically, socially, technologically and legally and environmentally (Saxby, et al. 2002).
Political environment
Ariat Corporation operates in many countries including U.S, UK, Australia and other European markets. The political environment in the countries of operation has been very stable leading to the ease with which the company operates within the markets. Due to political stability, certainty in the business environment exits leading to better operating environment for Ariat. Therefore, political stability is a positive indicator for the future sale of the company products (Jobber & Lancaster, 2003).
Economic environment: this involves the inclusion of economic indicators and the performance of the various economies in terms of the GDP. The GDP is used by to indicate the economic growth of a country per annum. There are many economic indicators that produce the aggregate growth in terms of the GDP.
They include good infrastructure, health, education and industrial growth and productivity. The economies of U.S and UK have performed well regardless of the 2008 global financial crisis where the economies registered negative growth rates as indicated in the fig below.
The good performance of the economies is a positive indicator to the future sale of the women’s shoes by Ariat. The reason for positive perspective of the revenue is because economic growth positively affects the disposable income of consumers due to reduced unemployment.
Source: Trading Economics, (2011).
Social Cultural environment: Culture is an important aspect of consumers that determine their behavior. It is comprised of various elements such as language, beliefs, values and religion among others. All consumers of women’s shoes are rational consumers whose behavior is shaped by culture. In all the markets that Ariat operates, there are different cultures that influence footwear consumption. For instance, the American hip hop culture affects the consumption of boots sold by Ariat (Spiro, Rich & Stanton, 2008).
In addition to culture of consumers, there exists the organization culture that affects productivity. Ariat has a good organizational culture that has positively affected the company’s productivity. However, as the company ventures into new markets, there culture shock is set to affect its sales. For this, the organization should employ local sin the country to perform most of the duties.
Technological environment: the world technology has advanced over time and products in the modern world are manufactured using high technology. Aria has been able to utilize the latest technology in manufacturing its products as well as selling the products through e-commerce and e-business. Through such advanced technological ventures, Ariat Corporation is able to transform its performance (Spiro, Rich & Stanton, 2008).
Legal environment: the legal environment includes the rules and regulations of international trade restrictions for operating in given countries. Legal issues affecting the operations of Ariat include different terms of operations in different countries. In addition, the issues of import and export taxes and tariffs reduce the company’s efficiency.
Environmental issues: environmental sustainability is an important topic given the impact of industrial activities on the environment. Ariat Corporation has included corporate social responsibility in its activities. However, more emphasis should be taken to cater for the environment utilization of reusable resources.
References
Jobber, D. & Lancaster, G. (2003). Selling and sales management. 7 Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Saxby, et al. (2002). Environmental Scanning and Organizational Culture. Marketing Intelligence and Planning. Volume 20. Issue 1 pp28-34.
Spiro, R.L., Rich, R.A. & Stanton, W.J. (2008). Management of a sales force. 12 Ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Trading Economics, (2011). United States GDP Growth Rate. Web.