THE ENVIRONMENT
Illustration 2.1
PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL analysis is a useful starting point for environmental analysis, encouraging students to think wide. Exhibit 2.2 provides an initial PESTEL analysis of the airline industry, giving students the general idea. The first question asks for additional elements in the analysis. For example, under Political, you might add subsidies for local airports; under Economic, you might add the rise of Asian economies; and under Legal, you could add the trend towards airline privatisation.
A key danger to highlight is of long lists of forces or influences that are too unwieldy for practical action. So the second question challenges students to assess which of the forces are likely to be of most significance in driving industry change. Here students should justify their views in terms of the evidence from the past and the likely impact in the future of any particular influence.
The end-chapter case example on the European brewing industry also asks students to do a PESTEL analysis.
Illustration 2.2
Scenarios
Scenarios help students think long term and very broadly: here the World Economic Forum and its members are looking a decade ahead, and thinking about geo-economics in general as well as just the market in a narrow sense.
The question asks about whether companies have more influence over government policy or geo-economics. It then goes on to ask about how companies might influence government. This also obviously touches on issues of corporate social responsibility, pursued in Chapter 4.
Companies probably do have more influence on policy coordination, but the issue is which governments they should be talking to (the United States, China?) and whether it is only governments that matter (United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation?). They should also consider how they can best influence governments, individually or collectively through, for example, the World Economic Forum