Every organization consists of both internal and external operating environments. Operational environmental scanning is critical for any company. Through this strategy, it becomes possible for the company to forecast and identify developments that are likely to influence the success of any organization.
As the Management Study Guide posits, “Environmental scanning refers to the possession and the utilization of information about occasions, patterns, trends, and relationships within an organization’s internal and external environment” (2008, Para 1). The advantages of conducting environmental scanning are multifold.
On one hand, it enables the managers of an organization to come up with ample strategic plans for the propulsion of the organization’s success in the future. On the other hand, for incredible prosperity of the organization based on profitability, managers must be fully aware of the persisting and emerging threats, as well as the opportunities therein.
Environmental scanning enormously aids in the realization of this goal of management. Consequently, managers can take proactive steps to dwindle the possible threats while maximizing on the strengths and taking the advantage of the opportunities that are likely to take the organization to extra heights, both in the long-term and short-term.
Therefore, the paper presents an environmental scan from the profiles and contexts of the operation of the World Wide technology Inc.
World Wide Technology Inc. is perhaps one of the global organizations that have deployed an ample environmental scanning. It has enabled it influence and sustain its global presence. This is largely so because, by conducting the environmental scan, the company stands a good chance to identify the possible operational threats.
It can shun away from them and instead capitalize on the available strengths. With the modern business operational environment characterized by dynaminism, a strategic focus is critical.
World Wide Technology Inc. embraces this focus credibly, as it may be supported by its diversification of its products. Its decisions to form strategic alliances with various corporations enhance this diversification, something that enormously improves the sustainability and competitiveness of its services and products.
This means that successful organizations such as the World Wide Technology Inc. deploy and implement strategic plans that not only make economic sense in the long-term but also the short-term basis.
Given the product and the service lines of the World Wide Technology Inc., technology is one dominant threat. However, it is also an opportunity that is both internal and external to the organization. Perhaps consistent with Mintzberg et al., the organization has a noble duty to conduct a thorough environmental scan to “reveal the “areas to capitalize on, as well as areas where expansion may be unwise” (2003, p.79).
Basing on a fast environmental scan by the managers, both internal and external, large products and services dependent on technology reveals that flexibility is critical for the sustained global presence of the company. To enhance flexibility, World Wide Technology Inc. does not seek to make provisions for creating a pool of its fully owned technological assets to help it carry on with its business.
As Bloomberg Businessweek (2011) informs, it embraces a long-term strategic partnership’s commitment with “Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, EMC, Dell Computer Corporation, Novell, Computer Associates…Network Technologies, Inc., and Iomega” (Para.3).
All these strategic partners of World Wide Technology Inc. deal with research and the development of new IT technologies within the information industry in which the company operates. The company then has both short-term and long-term advantages.
In the short-term, the company enjoys the utilization of the current technologies. In the end, as people deliver and introduce the new technologies to the market, the company enjoys a firsthand feel of such technologies. This way, the company can cope with dwindled profitability that is likely to arise because of technological obsolesce.
Furthermore, in the external environmental scan, as well as the evaluation process of its strategic decisions to form long-term strategic partnerships with all the priory mentioned companies, which normally deal with similar industry, thus, operating in the competitive mode, the company considers the advantages accruing from tapping the innovations of each of the competing company.
Competition is a critical operational dynamic of any company. The competitive situation is even worse when it entails reselling or using technology-sensitive capital goods in the production of goods and services for sale. Unfortunately, technology is part of the world Wide technology’s tools of trade. External competition, consequently, becomes critical.
For the companies that produce the technologies that the World Wide technology Inc. utilizes in running its business, they must compete to outdo each other. As a repercussion, World Wide technology takes the advantage of having a firsthand feel of the most recent innovations in terms of technological sophistication.
To the company, the fruits include a reduction in the production costs coupled with diversification of its product lines. This way, the company achieves higher profit margins.
Arguably, the realization of the need to take a competitive advantage of the technologies of its partners, after conducting the external and internal environmental scan, the World Wide technologies Inc. finds it subtle to form strategic partnerships with other companies than dedicate their efforts in the production of the technology itself.
This way, some form of flexibility is also achieved with a minimal cost of technological changeovers.
Some of the most imperative external environmental factors in the remote industry and external operating environments of the World Wide technologies Inc. are somewhat worth noting.
As the Management Study Guide (2008) reckons, some of the crucial internal operational factors within an organization include, but not limited to, “employee interaction with other employees, employee interaction with management, manager interaction with other managers, main staff, operational potential amongst other variables” (Para 2).
It is essential for all these internal environmental variables to function in harmony if at all the company is to remain fully aligned and fully committed to its strategic goals and objectives: converting its resources into capital goods with value addition. The global success of World Wide technologies Inc. is widely attributable to its capacity to harmonize all these variables.
The World Wide technology Inc. external environment scan takes into consideration various external factors that may influence its success in the global arena. In this context, the company deploys its effort to thoroughly introspect and evaluate the frameworks.
It “examines the sources of competition for available market margins by taking into account political, economic, social, technical, legal and environmental influences on their companies” (Hunger & Wheelen, 2006, p.129). This secures the company a chance to take into consideration the global, regional and local population trends in the consumption of its products and services.
In case the company finds through environmental scans that its myriad global market demands some new product, it mobilizes its large pool of technologies to create the necessary products. In this manner, World Wide technologies Inc. can remain competitive locally, regionally and in the global face.
Similar to all other organizations that deploy external environmental scanning to help them establish and forecast the most suitable operational plan for their future success, World Wide technologies Inc. is not an exception.
It recognizes that, as an organization becomes more competitive, and that there are pronounced changes in the environment, defined as “external” to the company, the data gathered from the external environment is critical to the enhancement of the company’s long-term plans. As Armstrong (2006) reckons, “Since the environment is dynamic, it becomes essential to identify the competitors’ moves and actions.
Hence, organizations need also to update the core competencies and internal environment as per the external environment” (p.189). In this context, World Wide technology Inc. perceives environmental factors as infinite. Thus, it remains both vigile and agile by opening its arms widely to accept and or adjust accordingly as the dynamic internal and external environments alter.
Therefore, based on the expositions made in the paper, it suffices to declare external scanning as one that broadly encompasses the correlation of three environments. These environments are “immediate/industry environment, national environment, and broader socio-economic environment/macro-environment” (Armstrong, 2006, p.167).
The internal environment contains variables related only to the company’s intrinsic operation in terms of the interrelationships between the employees and employers and or its owners. As the paper advocates, and as evidenced by World Wide technology Inc., harmony between these two environments is crucial for the ample success of an organization in attaining its preset or forecasted plans.
Reference List
Armstrong, M. (2006). A handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page.
Bloomberg Businessweek. (2011). World Wide Technology, Inc. Web.
Hunger, D., & Wheelen, T. (2006). Essential of Strategic Management. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Management Study Guide. Environmental Scanning- Internal and External Analysis of the Environment. Web.
Mintzberg, H. et al. (2003). The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, and Cases. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. A Pearson Education Company.