Environmental Scan

An environmental scanning process consists of an organization gathering information about the industry in which it operates, including information about the economy, government, laws and demographic factors such as population size, distribution and other factors. The organization should focus on its competitors. The company should examine the research for trends, opportunities and threats that might impact its business. An internal scan of the organization is needed to examine the organizations strengths and weaknesses. An organization should gather information from the community it conducts business and interview the leaders of the groups or use surveys. An external scan of the organization is the opportunities and threats that are outside the organization. When conducting an environmental scan, a variety of methods should be used to collect data, including publications, focus groups, leaders inside and outside the organization and the media. After the data is collected, the final step is to analyze the data and identify changes that can be made using a SWOT analysis, resource–based view, and the VRIO framework.
According to the reading, the VRIO framework helps organizations determine if a resource adds value or defend against threats (Pearce & Robinson, 2013). If the answer is yes, then a resource is considered valuable. Organizations need to constantly monitor the value of the resources because changes in internal or external conditions can make them less valuable or useless. Resources that can only be acquired by an organization are considered rare. Imitation can occur in two ways either through duplicating or substituting the resource. An organization that has valuable, rare and costly to imitate resources can achieve a competitive advantage. An organization needs to manage its systems, processes, policies, organizational structure and stakeholders to be able to fully realize the potential of its valuable, rare and costly to imitate resources and its