Environmental Scanning is a predictive and interpretive discipline. Its purpose is to look for Change, within the Organizational Environment, so that an organization can make the necessary plans, for a relevant response. It can be viewed as an organization observing and monitoring the activities occurring within its Environment, on its own ‘radar system’.
The analogy, of a system of organizational radar, provides an effective method for understanding how environmental scanning works. Decisions and events occurring within any of the Factors that make up an organization’s Environment eg. Competition, Political, Technology etc can, directly, influence the activities and character of the organization. These influences can be positive, when opportunities present themselves: or negative, when problems arise.
The continuous cyclical scanning, around the organization’s ‘radar scope’, can pick up many ‘contacts’, within the Factors that make up an organization’s Environment. The role of the environmental scanning analyst is to ensure that nothing gets missed. Some of the ‘contacts’ identified might be regularly occurring events, activities and decisions, which will have little or no impact on the organization and require no action. Other minor deviations, from the organization’s regular environmental ‘status quo’, might prompt routine responses from the organization.
However, sometimes, ‘contacts’ are picked up, which demand that the organization conducts much more in-depth analysis and research on the identified Changes. Such Changes might require significant decisions on policy and systems, prompting fundamental amendments to an organization’s Aims, People, Technologies and Structure.
And so, who is responsible for Environmental Scanning?
Individual Responsibility Environmental Scanning is everyone’s responsibility. Whether a CEO or a Section Leader, people should be looking beyond their own organizational boundaries to see how Change will affect the organization’s form and function.
Departmental Responsibility There is a case for seeing the monitoring of particular Factors, within an organization’s Environment, relating to the responsibilities and expertise of particular departments. The Marketing and Sales Departments might monitor the activities of the Competition. Production and Engineering might concern themselves with developments in Technology. Finance might keep track of new Legislation that will affect organizational systems: and so on.
Multidisciplinary Teams Often Change that occurs crosses departmental boundaries. This might require that existing multidisciplinary teams, which, already, regularly work together on specified inter-departmental activities, undertake scanning and analysis of particular Environmental Factors. Multidisciplinary teams are well-placed to monitor Change.
Executive Boards and Teams Many organizations recognize the management of Change as an executive responsibility, at the highest level. Environmental scanning, analysis, evaluation and recommendation for action, undertaken in the corporate infrastructure, should find expression in the regular meeting agendas of the senior decision-making team.
Whatever mechanisms are in place, everyone should participate, preferably, mandated through a defined Key Result Area, in their Job Description, in maintaining the highest vigilance for Change, in the organization’s Environment.
‘Read the Signs’
The organizational radar system contributed to the DNA of the following Training Package: