Mana 4322: Chapter 2 Study Guide
Questions and Answers.
Three Inputs to Forecasting? - Answer 1) Environmental Scanning
2) Environmental Monitoring
3) Competitive Intelligence
External Scanning - Answer Surveillance of a firm’s external environment to predict
environmental changes and detect changes already under way.
- Alerts the firm to critical trends before changes have developed a discernible pattern and
before competitors recognize them.
External Monitoring - Answer A firms analysis of the external environment that tracks
evolution of environmental trends, sequences of events, or streams of activities.
How to spot trends - Answer - Listen
- Pay attention
- Good trends online
- Go old school
How Zara spots opportunities - Answer Zara's designers, marketing managers, and buyers
work side by side in an open office plan that fosters *frequent discussions* and promotes the
sharing of real time data as well as field *observations*.
This allows them to break out of their silos and develop a holistic feel for the market, see how
their work fits, and *sense new opportunities* as they arise.
Competitive intelligence - Answer A firms activities of collecting and interpreting data on
competitors, defining and understanding the industry, and identifying competitors strengths and
weaknesses.
Environmental forecasting - Answer The development of plausible projections about
direction, scope, speed and intensity of environmental change.
Scenario analysis - Answer An in-depth approach to environmental forecasting that involves
experts detailed assessments of societal trends, economics, politics, technology, or other
dimensions of the external environment.
Questions and Answers.
Three Inputs to Forecasting? - Answer 1) Environmental Scanning
2) Environmental Monitoring
3) Competitive Intelligence
External Scanning - Answer Surveillance of a firm’s external environment to predict
environmental changes and detect changes already under way.
- Alerts the firm to critical trends before changes have developed a discernible pattern and
before competitors recognize them.
External Monitoring - Answer A firms analysis of the external environment that tracks
evolution of environmental trends, sequences of events, or streams of activities.
How to spot trends - Answer - Listen
- Pay attention
- Good trends online
- Go old school
How Zara spots opportunities - Answer Zara's designers, marketing managers, and buyers
work side by side in an open office plan that fosters *frequent discussions* and promotes the
sharing of real time data as well as field *observations*.
This allows them to break out of their silos and develop a holistic feel for the market, see how
their work fits, and *sense new opportunities* as they arise.
Competitive intelligence - Answer A firms activities of collecting and interpreting data on
competitors, defining and understanding the industry, and identifying competitors strengths and
weaknesses.
Environmental forecasting - Answer The development of plausible projections about
direction, scope, speed and intensity of environmental change.
Scenario analysis - Answer An in-depth approach to environmental forecasting that involves
experts detailed assessments of societal trends, economics, politics, technology, or other
dimensions of the external environment.
