How To Effectively Conduct A PESTLE
How To Effectively Conduct A PESTLE
SWOT Analysis
Published on October 20, 2016
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Byron Gray
Providing Digital and Business Transformation Strategies, Plans and Consuting Services
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PESTLE and SWOT are highly effective analysis tools to help you during the process
of developing a strategic plan for your business. They can be used in isolation,
however become significantly more effective when used in combination.
If combined, PESTLE analysis is usually completed first to provide a context for the
SWOT analysis.
PESTLE Analysis
The assumption is that, if a business is able to audit its current environment and
assess potential changes, it will be better placed than its competitors to respond to
changes. Often, the analysis will determine likely issues/events that will impact the
business – these are generally considered to be outside the control of the business.
The diagram below shows how all these different factors can influence the business
or organisation and how it operates.
Let’s consider the individual factors and how they may impact your business plan:
POLITICAL
This factor represents the way and extent to which the government influences the
economy, and certain businesses. This could be at the federal, state or local level.
Current considerations in the market that may impact planning include factors, e.g.
a potential change of government, unstable government due to the balance of
power, tax law, changing superannuation policies, labour laws, and trade
restrictions.
ECONOMIC
This factor refers to the areas unique to the economy and directly influence it.
Factors that may influence your business plan include inflation rates, interest rates,
economic growth, exchange rates, and property prices.
Economic also refers to local economic factors within your geographic area, e.g.
Newcastle, the second most populated area in NSW, is famous for its coal exports. In
comparison, Port Lincoln in South Australia is known as the Seafood Capital of
Australia. Economic factors differ for each town or city and must be analysed for
their impact on your business.
SOCIAL
TECHNOLOGICAL
This refers to the rate of technological changes and Research and Development (R &
D) activities, automation, and incentives. These factors influence outsourcing
decisions, quality, and efficiency considerations. Some examples include mobile
internet, smart phones, Skype appointments, location based searching, emergence
of Artificial Intelligence etc. Over the last 10 years, changes in technology have
massively impacted every industry and the degree and speed that this will occur in
the future is only going to increase.
LEGAL
This factor refers to all the laws directly connected to a business or company and its
area of activity. E.G. WHS, Consumer Law, Privacy and Discrimination Law.
ENVIRONMENTAL
This refers to all the factors directly related to, influenced, or determined by the
surrounding environment. This could include weather and natural disasters,
geographical position, climate changes, and sustainability. Think about the
apparent increased frequency of natural disasters (floods, drought etc.) and their
impact on the business and future planning of many affected businesses.
You may need to brainstorm and have an expert knowledge of the business and/or
the world outside the business for this.
Decide the implications of the external factors – rank or rate them. Normally, this
involves assessing their impact over time (short, medium and long-term), impact by
type (positive or negative affects), and impact by dynamics; i.e. the
significance/importance of the implication increasing, decreasing, or remaining
unchanged.
Rate the potential impact on the business, high – low, and the likelihood of it
happening, low – high.
You can then undertake further analysis in the form of a SWOT Analysis or scenario
building. Developing ‘what if’ scenarios enables you to visualise different alternative
futures for the business, focusing on the high frequency, high impact combinations
of influences.
SWOT analysis
As discussed earlier, SWOT analysis helps to interpret the findings of the PESTLE
analysis to determine the business’s strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities
and threats. It is important, as a part of the internal focus, to conduct the SWOT
analysis prior to completing your business plan. It is a critical part of the risk
management process.
What are some of the questions you could ask yourself, which would also assist with
the business planning process?
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
The completed SWOT analysis image provides an example of the issues that a
business owner may face.
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Byron Gray is a highly experienced senior manager and leader with more than 20
years of international business experience. He writes articles on how to develop
high performing businesses and regularly shares ideas, concepts, strategies and
insights into the latest trends in Leadership & Management.
Porter's 5 Forces
By
GORDON SCOTT
Fact checked by
PATRICE WILLIAMS
1:44
Porter's Five Forces
3. Power of suppliers
4. Power of customers
5. Threat of substitute products 1
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Power of Suppliers
The next factor in the five forces model addresses how easily suppliers can
drive up the cost of inputs. It is affected by the number of suppliers of key
inputs of a good or service, how unique these inputs are, and how much it
would cost a company to switch to another supplier. The fewer suppliers to
an industry, the more a company would depend on a supplier. As a result,
the supplier has more power and can drive up input costs and push for
other advantages in trade. On the other hand, when there are many
suppliers or low switching costs between rival suppliers, a company can
keep its input costs lower and enhance its profits.
Power of Customers
The ability that customers have to drive prices lower or their level of power
is one of the five forces. It is affected by how many buyers or customers a
company has, how significant each customer is, and how much it would
cost a company to find new customers or markets for its output. A smaller
and more powerful client base means that each customer has more power
to negotiate for lower prices and better deals. A company that has many,
smaller, independent customers will have an easier time charging higher
prices to increase profitability.
The Five Forces model can help businesses boost profits, but they must
continuously monitor any changes in the five forces and adjust their
business strategy.
Threat of Substitutes
The last of the five forces focuses on substitutes. Substitute goods or
services that can be used in place of a company's products or services
pose a threat. Companies that produce goods or services for which there
are no close substitutes will have more power to increase prices and lock
in favorable terms. When close substitutes are available, customers will
have the option to forgo buying a company's product, and a company's
power can be weakened.
Understanding Porter's Five Forces and how they apply to an industry, can
enable a company to adjust its business strategy to better use its
resources to generate higher earnings for its investors.
Differentiation
Differentiation is a type of competitive strategy with which a company seeks to
distinguish its products or services from that of competitors: the goal is to be
unique. A company may use creative advertising, distinctive product features, higher
quality, better performance, exceptional service or new technology to achieve a
product being perceived as unique. A differentiation strategy can reduce rivalry with
competitors if buyers are loyal to a company’s brand. Companies with a
differentiation strategy therefore rely largely on customer loyalty. Because of the
uniqueness, companies with this type of strategy usually price their products higher
than competitors. Examples of companies with differentiated products and services
are: Apple, Harley-Davidson, Nespresso, LEGO, Nike and Starbucks.
Cost Leadership
Cost Leadership is a type of competitive strategy with which a company aggressively
seeks efficient large-scale production facilities, cuts costs, uses economies of scale,
gains production experience and employs tight cost controls to be more efficient in
the production of products or the offering of services than competitors: the goal is
to be the low-cost producer in the industry. A low-cost position also means that a
company can undercut competitors’ prices through for example penetration
pricing and can still offer comparable quality against reasonable profits. Low-cost
producers typically sell standard no-frills products or services. Examples of
companies with cost leadership positions are: Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart,
McDonald’s, EasyJet, Costco and Amazon.
Focus
Focus is a type of competitive strategy that emphasizes concentration on a specific
regional market or buyer group: a niche. The company will either use a
differentiation or cost leadership strategy, but only for a narrow target market
rather than offering it industry-wide. The company first selects a segment or group
of segments in an industry and then tailors its strategy to serve those segments best
to the exclusion of others. Like mentioned, the focus strategy has two variants:
Differentiation Focus and Cost Focus. These two strategies differ only from
Differentiation and Cost Leadership in terms of their competitive scope. Examples of
companies with a differentiation focus strategy are: Rolls Royce, Omega, Prada and
Razer. Examples of companies with a cost focus strategy are: Claire’s, Home Depot
and Smart.
Before you get started, make a list of your resources and capabilities. These may be
tangible or intangible items and may consist of material, financial, or human
resources, such as patents, machinery, people skills, cost advantages, or anything else.
Intangible resources tend to be the source of most sustainable competitive
advantages, but that’s not always the case. To apply the VRIO framework, evaluate
each item on this list through the following four lenses:
Value: Do you offer a resource that adds value for customers? Are you able to exploit
an opportunity or neutralize competition with an internal capability?
Rarity: Do you control scarce resources or capabilities? Do you own something that’s
hard to find yet in demand?
o No: You have value but lack rarity, putting your company in a position
of competitive parity. Your resources are valuable but common, which
makes competing in the marketplace more challenging (but not
impossible). It’s recommended to go back one step and reassess.
o No: If your resource has value and rarity, but is affordable or easy to copy,
you have a temporary competitive advantage. It will require
considerable effort to stay ahead of competitors and differentiate your
services—go back one step and reassess.
Value: Use human capital management data to hire and retain innovative, productive
employees. These employees consistently create some of the most popular consumer
products and services in the world.
Rarity: No other companies are using data-based employee management so
extensively.
It can help set the course for future plans and help you better allocate business
resources.
It can produce insights that may help identify and evaluate potential opportunities
and threats to determine which ones are more important.
While the VRIO framework is useful for understanding your competitive position and
providing strategic insights, it also has some limitations:
New and small businesses may find it more difficult to apply the VRIO framework
simply because they haven’t yet fully developed their resources or capabilities to
establish a sustained competitive advantage.
VRIO is solely an internal analysis, so you will need other frameworks (like the SWOT
analysis) to fill in the gaps.
What’s the difference between the VRIO framework and a SWOT analysis?
If you’re familiar with strategic planning, you’ve probably also heard of a SWOT analysis. While you can use
both SWOT and VRIO in the early stages of strategic planning, they are different tools that produce different
insights.
The VRIO framework focuses solely on evaluating internal resources and is intended to help identify the
specific resources that make your firm more competitive.
SWOT, on the other hand (an acronym for “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats”), is a high-
level strategic planning model that helps organizations identify areas where they’re doing well and where they
can improve, both from an internal and an external perspective. It does not thoroughly evaluate your internal
resources like VRIO but rather aims to help you assess your future prospects based on your current position
and external conditions.
The VRIO framework can also inform your SWOT analysis. Whatever competitive
advantages you uncover should be included in the “Strengths” section of your SWOT
analysis. Even some resources that don’t pass the full VRIO test may still be
considered strengths (for instance, if something is VRO—valuable and rare, and your
organization can capitalize on it); however, don’t identify a resource or capability as a
sustainable competitive advantage unless it meets all the criteria—that’s where your
uniqueness lies. On the flip side, if an existing resource isn’t yet a sustainable
competitive advantage and you would like to change that, you could identify it as a
“weakness” or an area that needs improvement.
The VRIO framework and SWOT analysis are important parts of the strategy
development phase. Once you’ve developed your strategic plan, you’ll then need to
take specific actions to make it come to fruition. Many organizations use a strategic
framework (like the Balanced Scorecard) to help transform their strategy ideas into
an actionable plan and strategy software (like ClearPoint) to break those ideas into
manageable goals they can then organize and track.
Exemples de FCS :
Voici des éléments qui constituent des facteurs clés de compétitivité. Ce sont des
prérequis pour intégrer un marché.
détenir une image de marque forte, facteur clé de réussite dans l'industrie du
luxe
être doté de solides ressources financières (ou capitaux propres) pour sécuriser
son développement
La vue externe d'une part et la vue interne de l'autre, livrent une lecture
puissante de la situation stratégique d'une entreprise et des leviers à actionner
pour atteindre ses objectifs.
Pour rappel un domaine d'activité stratégique, aussi appelé DAS, est composé
d'un ensemble d'activités qui possèdent des FCS proches et requiert des savoir-
faire et ressources bien identifiés. A savoir que les DAS gardent une portée
stratégique sur lesquels l'équipe dirigeante applique des stratégies génériques
(croissance externe, alliances, intégration verticale...). Pour des actions plus
opérationnelles, la stratégie marketing prend le relais.