Environmental Scan Business & Marketing Essay Paper

Environmental Scan in the Current Economic State
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Environmental Scan in the Current Economic State
Introduction
Environmental scanning refers to the process of collecting information concerning the relationships between events within the external and internal environments of an organization. Accordingly, an environmental scan offers insight to the management to determine the present and plans for an organization. The global economy is currently reeling under the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows that all economies, regardless of their income levels, have been significantly impacted by the novel coronavirus. In the foregoing, many organizations across the world have to contend with the negative impacts of the pandemic. This paper conducts an environmental scan in the context of an organization dealing with the current economic state due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Current Economic State
As shown in a report by UNIDO (2020), the economic consequences of the coronavirus are not correlated with health impacts. Therefore many countries are experiencing a recession even when the number of new infections or deaths recorded is low (UNIDO, 2020). In this situation, numerous companies are facing an uphill task to wade through the harsh economic times. Notably, the world is embroiled in huge credit risk as millions of employees have lost their jobs, many restaurants and stores are only slowly opening amidst growing rent burdens, landlords are receiving lesser revenues which makes it difficult to pay for their mortgages, and industrial companies are increasingly finding it hard to pay for their equipment leases (McKinsey & Company, 2020).
While a majority of sectors and associated organizations struggle with the crippling impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few firms such as those in the technology industry are less affected. Accordingly, the stay at home directives or lockdowns has created more business opportunities for such firms due to the increased usage of the internet. However, the general state of the economy is characterized by massive business losses and operational challenges. In the foregoing, managements in the affected organizations are now less hopeful...