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Reposition! Refocus! Reengineer! These are just some of the
buzzwords we hear! They ask you to turn around, look back and take a
second glance at processes, efforts and targeted markets. Indeed
there will be times when more than one look would not be enough, so
let’s all sit down and take a similar but slightly different
approach in analyzing the external business environment.
Being a pharmacy graduate I only had the chance
to look at external business environments when I joined the
pharmaceutical industry as a medical representative in 1996. Taking
up my MBA the following year strengthened my knowledge of
opportunities and threats in an analysis that is part of the good
old SWOT matrix that remains relevant to this day.
As I became a senior manager I have come to
realize that there were times when opportunities and threats
eventually turned up only as potential opportunities and threats.
They never happened nor materialized. By this time I felt that there
may be a need to classify external factors as to whether they are
already “existing” or whether they are only “potential.”
Opportunities and threats may only be potential factors that need to
be acted upon or need to act upon your business in order to have an
effect. External factors already existing may then be called drivers
and barriers. These are things that are already in place and already
has an effect on your business. Thus, an existing law may be a
driver or a barrier whereas a pending bill in Congress may be an
opportunity or a threat for your business. A new competitive product
introduced in the market may already be a barrier but a new product
submitted to a regulatory agency for approval remains to be a
threat.
It is important not to confuse drivers with
strengths and barriers with weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are
internal factors while drivers and barriers are existing external
factors. These four categories may interact and be used as factors
in “re-analyzing” the external business environment. Factors
existing that affect your business positively may be categorized as
“drivers” while existing factors that have a negative impact may
be labeled as “barriers.” There are also potential factors that
in the future may affect the business positively and negatively.
In the order of battle I recommend that we first
reinforce the drivers that help our business. The increase in
minimum wage, although a cost in the short term, may be seen as a
business driver since it may lead to more stimulated and productive
workers in the long term. We can then move on to remove barriers (if
we can) to further growth and capitalize on opportunities to achieve
exponential success. The increasing prices of oil is definitely a
barrier to a lot of businesses but opportunities may be on the
alternative sources of energy like biofuels and methane which may
help stave off the impact of the continuing increase of traditional
oil prices in the future.
As we are doing these, we must always keep an
eye out for the threats and attempt to neutralize them as necessary.
Drivers and barriers may then need immediate attention while
opportunities and threats would not necessarily require any action.
This could be considered situational and may depend on the urgency
and gravity of a certain threat or the attractiveness and resource
requirements of pursuing an opportunity.
The author is a registered pharmacist and has
been with the pharmaceutical industry as a marketing practitioner
for more than 12 years. He is currently a student in the Doctor of
Business Administration program of the De La Salle Professional
Schools Ramon V. Del Rosario Sr. Graduate School of Business. He
welcomes comments at iking747@yahoo.com
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