How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 366

When developing strategies, analysis of the organization and its
environment as it is at the moment and how it may develop in the future,
is important. The analysis has to be executed at an internal level as well
as an external level to identify all opportunities and threats of the
external environment as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the
organizations.
There are several factors to assess in the external situation analysis:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Markets (customers)
Competition
Technology
Supplier markets
Labor markets
The economy
The regulatory environment

It is rare to find all seven of these factors having critical importance. It is
also uncommon to find that the first two - markets and competition - are
not of critical importance. (Bradford "External Situation - What to
Consider")
Analysis of the external environment normally focuses on the customer.
Management should be visionary in formulating customer strategy, and
should do so by thinking about market environment shifts, how these
could impact customer sets, and whether those customer sets are the
ones the company wishes to serve.
Analysis of the competitive environment is also performed, many times
based on the framework suggested by Michael Porter.

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