Chapter 2

Question 1

Inputs to Forecasting

Answer 1

Environmental scanning
Environmental monitoring
Competitive intelligence

Question 2

External scanning

Answer 2

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 & before competitors recognize them

Question 3

External monitoring

Answer 3

A firm’s analysis of the external environment that tracks evolution of environmental trends, sequences of events, or streams of activities

Question 4

Competitive intelligence

Answer 4

A firm’s activities of collecting & interpreting data on competitors, defining and understanding the industry, and identifying competitors’ strengths and weaknesses

-Me too Strategy - copy competitor

Question 5

Environmental forecasting

Answer 5

The development of plausible projections about direction, scope, speed, and intensity of environmental change

Question 6

Scenario analysis

Answer 6

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

Question 7

SWOT Analysis

Answer 7

A framework for analyzing a company’s internal and external environment that wants a firm to build on its STRENGTHS, remedy the WEAKNESSES or work around them, take advantage of the OPPORTUNITIES presented by the environment, and protect the firm from THREATS