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3 pages/β‰ˆ825 words
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APA
Subject:
Business & Marketing
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Essay
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:

Management 499 SLP 2: Importance of Environmental Analysis

Essay Instructions:

Module 2 - SLP

Environmental Assessment

Current Event Blog 2

For this SLP submission you will be asked to submit your second blog entry about another important aspect of the strategic management process and to provide examples based on current events pulled from recent articles from reputable sources (such as a major regional or national news source like the NY Times, Business Week, etc.).  

Recall that the main article(s) for each of your blog entries must be no older than 4 months old.  If you use an older article as your primary focal article, you will be asked to redo the assignment.  You may, of course, use older sources to support your discussion but the current event article(s) serving as the main focus of your paper must be recent. 

For your second SLP submission, describe why environmental analysis is important and find two recent articles that demonstrate how one or two organizations have reacted to a turbulent or competitive environment in a fashion which indicates they have leveraged their strengths, overcome weaknesses, taken advantage of opportunities, or successfully faced threats to maintain a competitive edge.  What is/are the lesson(s) to be learned that you want your blog readers to take away from your analysis? 

SLP Assignment Expectations

Your SLP assignment should be a minimum of 3 pages in length.

You are required to use APA formatting and you are required to cite and reference your sources.  There should be a minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your paper.  

Please make sure you review the assignment rubric prior to writing your assignment.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Environmental Assessment
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Importance of Environmental Analysis
Environmental analysis can be used as a strategic tool to identify all internal and external factors that affect the company’s performance. The analysis involves evaluating the level of opportunities or threats that may be present in the industry. Such assessment is later used in the decision-making process. The analysis assists in aligning strategies with the organization’s environment (Pozdnyakova et al. 2015). Organizations are often influenced by the environment in which they operate. All situational factors that determine daily circumstances have an influence on businesses. Therefore, businesses must continuously analyze the markets and environment in which they operate. Many strategic analysis tools can be used in conducting an environmental analysis. A good example is PEST analysis which is used in this paper to perform an environmental analysis of American Express Company and Apple Inc. Managers can use such analysis to find out the competitive level of their organizations in the industry and the market. Information obtained from environmental analysis is then feed into a SWOT analysis, which is used to determine not only the opportunities and threats but also weaknesses and strengths of the organizations.
How American Express Company and Apple Inc. have responded to a competitive or turbulent environment
American Express Company
American Express Inc. is an international financial service company that offers credit cards and other financial solutions to consumers/ cardholders who pay interest charges and annual fees on balances. In his article; Caplinger (2016) shows that the previous year has been a challenging for American Express. The firm, therefore, has decided to respond to its large share-price reduction with aggressive action to minimize costs and increase its long-term revenue potential to set a pace for rapid growth in the future. The competitive environment has enabled the competitor Visa Inc. to retain its top position in the card-network industry. 2015 was an ugly year for American Express due to its decline in net income. The company has developed a strategic plan to counter the growth which Visa Inc. and other competitors have recorded.
Based on this article, PEST analysis (environmental analysis) can be used to determine competitive position of the company. In political factors, strict government intervention and regulations could affect the financial service industry. In economic factors, competition in financial and credit industry has intensified, and competitors including Citigroup, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Financial Services (DFS) are stealing away American Express’s key customers (Caplinger, 2016). Therefore, American Express seeks how to develop its competitive edge. In social factors, consumer habits seem to change, and this could be the reason American Express is losing its customers. In technological factors, American Express needs to develop its innovation to enhance its competitiveness.
Information from environmental analysis can be used in SWOT analysis to determine how American Express can take advantages of its threats and op...
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