Global environmental analysis

The analysis of the global environment of a company is called global environmental analysis. This analysis is part of a company’s analysis-system, which also comprises various other analyses, like the industry analysis, the market analysis and the analyses of companies, clients and competitors. This system can be divided into a macro and micro level. Except for the global environmental analysis, all other analyses can be found on the micro level. Though, the global environmental analysis describes the macro environment of a company. Obviously, a company is influenced by its environment. Many environmental factors, especially economical or social factors, play a big role in a company’s decisions, because the analysis and the monitoring of those factors reveal chances and risks for the company’s business. This environmental framework also gives information about location issues. A company is thereby able to determine its location sites. Furthermore, many other strategic decisions are based on this analysis. One may also apply the BBW model. In addition, the factors are analyzed to evaluate external business developments. It is finally the task of the management to adapt the firm to its environment or to influence the environment in an adequate way. The latter is mostly the more difficult option. There are different instruments to analyze the company’s environment which are going to be explained afterwards.

One instrument to analyse the company’s external environment is the PEST analysis. PEST stands for political, economical, social and technological factors. Two more factors, the legal and environmental factor, are defined within the PESTLE analysis. To explain these environmental factors, it is necessary to say that most of the factors depend on each other and that they change over the years. Consequently, when one factor changes it also affects the others. The equality for every company is the main characteristic of the factors in an environmental analysis. The different environmental factors are covered below.

Political and legal factors are here regarded as a unit. They refer to framework given by politics. The exist regulatory or legal frameworks, which can be binding for regions, nations or on an international basis. The frameworks deal with economical issues or issues concerning the labour market.Subsidies for instance fall in the category of economical issues. According to the degree of support through subsidies, a country can be more or less attractive for a company. With respect to the labour law of a country, it can highly influence location decisions, too. If e.g. the dismissal protection in a country is very good, a firm may tend to choose a country with a more flexible hire-and-fire-system. Furthermore, the stability of a political system is a real important aspect for most firms. A social market economy with rights for co-determination, regulations for patents, the company’s investment and environment protection are main characteristics for a political stable system.

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