ICT for Business Environmental Scanning

Enduring organisations anticipate and adapt to environmental changes in ways that provide new opportunities for profitability and growth. The first step in this continuous drive for survival is environmental scanning. Environmental scanning involves gathering, analysing, and assimilating information relating to a firm''s external environment in order to spot budding trends and conditions that could eventually impact an industry. Such information is used to support strategic planning in production, marketing and other strategic initiatives. Environmental scanning helps managers detect environmental changes and problems before they become organizational crises. This research is thus a study of the strategic use of ICT by manufacturing companies to understand, predict, and adapt to their external environment in ways that provide competitive advantages.