What is an Environmental Analysis?
An environmental analysis (or environmental assessment) is a decision-making tool, often applied in technology management to characterize the forces impacting an emerging technology or a new or existing product. The environmental analysis can help you determine the effects of a proposed project or policy, and to proactively assess the impacts of a developing or emerging product or discipline. An environmental analysis also provides a really useful structure for learning about an area or a theme new to you or your company and identifying what the “state of the art” is (e.g. petascale computing, nanotechnology, innovative composite materials).
To conduct an environmental analysis, you should investigate and outline:
- CONTEXT. The technology of interest and the context in which it is/to be used
- CHALLENGES. The challenges that are presently identifiable; what you know, and how it compares and contrasts with the unknowns
- EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT. How the competitive environment impacts the scenario. This can be done via SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and/or by examining Porter’s (1980) Five Forces (supplier power, barriers to entry, threat of substitutes, buyer power, degree of rivalry)
- INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT. How themes influence and affect the scenario (e.g. via PEST analysis – political, economic, socio-cultural, technological impacts)
- ALTERNATIVES. Examine alternatives to the scenario being evaluated, and investigate what criteria (e.g. values, beliefs, project constraints, technical constraints) might be used if you will choose between competing alternatives in the future
Where can you get data for an environmental analysis? In addition to searching through resources from newspapers, magazines and trade journals, check the following:
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
- The OECD statistics portal contains international databases on agriculture, education, development, finance, labor, science and technology, energy, globalization, productivity, welfare, transport
- Their online library also contains environmental outlooks, news on economic policy reforms, and issues like work/life balance
World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report
- In the Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI) issued by the World Economic Forum, which is measured for more a hundred countries every year, there are four dimensions of global competitiveness routinely assessed: institutions, infrastructure, the macroeconomic environment, and health and education.
- Because technology has the potential to impact productivity at many levels, and because it is embedded in each of these areas, the effects of technological change are implicit in macroeconomic measures of competitiveness.
- You can learn more about the Global Competitiveness Report on Wikipedia
- Or use the Analyzer to explore the data
National Science Foundation Solicitations for Research Proposals – The NSF solicitations are an excellent place to learn about the state of the art in various fields. The solicitations explain what topics are the most interesting to the experts today, and what they are willing to pay to know more about. Often, the solicitations will explain the most recent trends that may be difficult to ascertain from the industry and academic literature.