External Environmental Scanning - Session 3

I think that the external opportunities and threats in the technology industry are particularly interesting right now, because it is easy to see organizations succeed and fail based on their ability to adapt. For example, Google seems like an organization that does a particularly good job of environmental scanning since they seem to be ready to respond to a constantly changing external environment. The organization's purchase of Android and emphasis on the mobile phone industry was a very smart move that turned a potential threat into an opportunity. Google has always made almost all of its profits from companies that pay for advertising on its search engine. Smart phones have changed the way people use the Internet, and today there are many more Internet users on mobile devices than on computers. This change in the external environment could have caused serious problems for Google, but instead they saw this change coming and bought Android. Google then scaled up Android and made it the most common operating system on smart phones. The interesting thing is that Google doesn't make any money on these phones, but it knows that every Android phone out there is another phone using Google for mail and search insuring that the organization's original product could survive and thrive in the new smart phone dominant Internet environment.

I think the key to environmental scanning is that you want to identify opportunities and threats in the external environment before they become obvious. Clearly Google did this with mobile phones. It bought android before anyone realized just how important that purchase would be for the company. In the same way, Google is currently being threatened by Facebook, and the shift to social networks away from traditional search engines. Google is reacting to this change as well, with social network attempts of its own, but I think they may be less successful here because they did not identify this threat as early, and thus are now forced to be more reactive than proactive.

As the readings point out, non-profits compete in a constantly changing external environment just like Google. Before any organization can determine an appropriate strategy, it must analyze the threats and opportunities that exist in the external environment in which it operates.