Environmental scanning
Environmental scanning is a process in which an organisation monitors its internal and external environment as a means of formulating or altering a strategic plan. It involves the ongoing tracking of trends, occurrences, patterns and relationships within its different environments and detecting early indications of opportunities or threats to the current and future plans of the organisation.
In a construction context, an organisation may gather information about the external environment; its competitors, pricing, technology, legislation, government policy, consumer behaviour, as well as information about its internal environment; its strengths and weaknesses.
This allows the state of the organisation to be assessed, and compared to the vision for where it plans to be in five or ten years’ time. This can be used to develop a forward strategy, identifying changes to company policy, objectives, activities and so on that can be made.
One popular method of environmental scanning is SWOT analysis. Each letter stands for one area to review: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The strengths and opportunities are factors within the company, and the weaknesses and threats come from sources outside the company.
Most scans include a thorough look at competition, economics, technology, legal issues, and social/demographic factors.
[edit] Find out more
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
Featured articles and news
The end of the games but continued calls for action.
From the Commonwealth Association of Architects.
CIOB respond to the government call for evidence
For the Levelling Up, Housing & Communities Committee.
How are buildings and their occupants responding to extreme heat?
BSRIA's Technical Director reflects on recent weather patterns.
Landownership in England in 1909
A national valuation to fund old-age pensions.
The world’s largest Commonwealth memorial to the missing.
Long after the end of the defects liability period.
BSRIA Occupant Wellbeing survey BOW
Occupant satisfaction and wellbeing in buildings.
Geometric form and buildings in brief
From the simple to the complex.
Understanding the changing nature of insulation
And the UK Government guidelines.
Three year action plan to improve equity, diversity and inclusion
Commitment agreed to by major built environment bodies.
The Construction Route – what needs to change?
Electrical skills, low carbon, high-tech and the building services revolution.
Deep geothermal power possibilities
Ultra-deep drilling with millimeter-wave beam technology.
BSRIA Briefing 2022- From the outside looking in
Looking at the built environment from space.
Competence requirements for principal contractors and designers
BSI standards 8671, 8672 and 8673.
Bringing life to burial grounds.
From failed modernism to twenty-minute neighbourhoods.
Design chill and design freeze
The gates process and change control.
Neuroscience for project success
Why people behave as they do. APM book.