Part 1 Environmental scanning - an overview: what is environmental scanning?; environmental scanning and business strategy; purpose of environmental scanning; how does environmental scanning fit into the organization?; why is environmental scanning more necessary today?. Part 2 Why scan the environment?: environmental impact case examples - general motors, the textile industry, Dupont and Corfam, life insurance industry; four reasons for scanning - industrial evolution, speed of change and increasing complexity, evolution in planning methodology, assymetry of environmental impacts; survey evidence - benefits of scanning, criticisms of scanning; synthesis of the evidence - standards for environmental scanning. Part 3 The organization and its environment - the issue is uncertainty: models of the environment; uncertainty of the environment - turbulence, strength of signal; impacts of environmental uncertainty on the organization - uncertainty and organization attributes; uncertainty and information systems; uncertainty and organization structure; uncertainty and strategy. Part 4 The dimensions of the environment: the operational dimension; the financial dimension; the technological dimension; the competitive dimension; the stakeholder dimension; the omnipresence of government and economics; dimensions, not blinders. Part 5 Guidelines for a scanning strategy: setting the environmental focal zone - governments; economies and environmental focal zone; critical success factors and environmental focal zone; market strategy and environmental focal zone; market dominance and environmental focal zone; innovators and environmental focal zone; turbulence and environmental focal zone; stakeholder interdependence and environmental focal zone; dimensional focus and balance - a summary; range settings of scanning - plausibility; time; geographic; format of collection of environmental information - continuity of scanning. Information sources for environmental scanning.
