There are five major environments associated with any organization or industry - an internal environment and four external environments. The external environment analysis is sometimes referred to as a PEST analysis (political-economical-social-technological analysis).
In this assignment, you will need to research the industry you chose in order to identify the trends, patterns, and consistencies in the business environments for that industry.
- Trends- A series of data points that show either an upward or downward movement or a gradual movement in one direction.
- Patterns- Finding items that are recurring over and over in a cyclic fashion or if something regularly happens and a resulting reaction always occurs.
- Consistencies- Things (e.g., events or activities) that remain constant and really do not appear to change over time within the industries.
Action Items
1. View the following videos on various business environments, including both internal and external environments:
a. Internal
b. Political
c. Economic
d. Social
e. Technological
2. Pick two of the environments you would like to further research for this assignment.
3. Use the industry you selected in Week 2 of this course.
4. Conduct research to identify political trends, patterns, and consistencies in the two business environments for the industry you chose to research national and global levels.
5. Write a 1-2 page business brief. Follow the Business Brief Guidelines. Use section headers appropriately. Include at least two references from the MBA Journal List. Your brief should include the following:
a. Briefly orient the reader to the industry that you have selected.
b. Describe the key trends, patterns, and consistencies in both of the environments you researched.
c. Identify important synergies or convergences among the trends, if any exists.
d. Select what you believe is the most critical trend, pattern, or consistency related to your industry's future success from among all the trends, patterns, and consistencies you have identified. Explain why you think this is the most critical to the industry.
e. Analyze what you believe will be the major impacts of this most critical trend, pattern, or consistency on the industry over the next five years.