Environmental Scan Essay
Environmental scan in reference to businesses and strategic planning includes terms that will persuade the directions and objectives of a business.
Environmental scanning also involves the significance of the future and present issues that may have an effect on the business itself, since a business is planning for future and not just the present condition of the company. Environmental scanning is the monitoring and evaluation of a business exterior and interior to notice any signs of current opportunities are coercions.With strategic planning, an environmental scan can provide a business with knowledge of the inside and outside environmental issues that will involve accomplishing the long term objectives of the business. The Learning Care Group Corporation and Bright Horizons Corporation both serves as models for key competitors in the early childhood education field business and strives to be different than other leading competitors producing the same type of service or educational experience for children and families.For instance, an environmental scan may predict that within five years, the amount of children enrolled between the ages of 6 weeks-5 years will rise from 20% to 30%. This type of information is essential so that both companies can predict what type of new goods and services to provide to families and children enrolled in their programs.
The question to consider is to whether to bring in more educational programs to benefit more children in different ages?Or to bring in programs just aimed for a specific age group? The environmental scan helps the companies to review all these factors before making a decision. The reputation of both corporations, need to widen and keep a competitive advantage that will give way to their good deeds. The principle of growing a competitive advantage measurement principle will need to be put in place to develop efficient strategic planning and determine the efficiency of both plans.The goal of this paper is to examine and explain the inside and outside factors to get to a business and to explain the inner and outer environments of both businesses and gain knowledge on how both businesses utilize environmental scanning. In addition, a breakthrough of competitive advantages will be exposed by evaluating strategies, which include formation of value and maintain strength guiding principle, and the efficiency of the guiding principles utilized by both businesses.
Internal and External EnvironmentsThe entire development can be seen as positive information for supervisors aspiring to elevate the long term effectiveness and grow strategic plans for a company. A business environment can be divided in two parts. The inner environment, which is the conditions, entities, events, and factors within an business that persuade its activities and choices, particularly the behavior of the employees (“Business Dictionary”, 2012). The outer environment includes factors out of the business control which include, political, economic, sociological, technological, ecological, and legal factors (Carpenter & Sanders, , 2009).Learning Care Group and Bright Horizons The environmental scan of the Learning care Group and Bright Horizons will entail observing, examining, and publishing of data from the outer and inner environments to the main individuals in the company. Additionally, both businesses will have to examine the present accomplishments outcomes, evaluate business governance, examine and evaluate the outer and inner environment, examine the SWOTT methods to add to the utmost strategy to apply and examine.Harmful threats possibilities for the Learning care Group and Bright Horizons for will be analyze by evaluating outer issues, market direction, and measures that will assist each business in evaluating their business force. The inner environments of both education companies consist of their mission, vision, and weakness, when closed with the outer study both businesses will establish planned instructions to develop a strategic plans.
Learning Care Group Strategies Headquartered in Novi, Michigan, Learning Care Group, Inc. is the second-largest for-profit child care provider in North America.An international leader in child education and family solutions, we provide early education and care services to children between the age of six weeks and 13 years under our five unique brands (“Learning Care Group”, 2012). In total, Learning Care Group operates more than 900 corporate and franchise schools across the country and around the world — each devoted to providing a safe and stimulating environment that will inspire a lifelong love of learning. We have the capacity to serve more than 100,000 children between the ages of six weeks and 13 years.
Our 17,000 dedicated directors and teachers share our vision to develop innovative Learning Care solutions, helping to enable us to better serve children and their families (“Learning Care Group”, 2012). The Learning Care group will have to prove supervision and set routine objectives to keep competitive advantages for asset prospective. The learning care Group main prospective is to stay competitive and providing the best possible care and educational experience for children ages 6wks to 13 years of age.Amongst the different scanning approaches which consist of conditioned, undirected, formal searching, and informal searching, the Learning Care Group will pull toward active scanning in order to focus on resources that cross the business. The Learning care group will determine the level of scanning based on the present circumstances of the business. The guidelines utilized by the learning Care Group to confirm strategic efficiency consist of Governance and decision making in addition, to tracking and reporting to set up new practices.Bright Horizons Founded in 1986, Bright Horizons Family Solutions is a leading provider of employer-sponsored child care, back-up care, early education, educational advisory services and other work/life solutions. The Bright Horizons Family Solutions mission is to provide innovative programs that help children, families, and employers work together to be their very best (“Bright Horizons”, 2012).
Bright Horizon has remained a success by offering families a great education experience and a commitment to strong program corporate governance.Bright Horizons external factors consist of social, technological, and competitors, which play a major role in the success of the business. Another asset of bright Horizon is the ability to recognize the needs and wishes of their families by putting together an effective marketing plan with future expectation of consumer needs and wants.
Competitive Advantages When examining the competitive advantages, both the cost advantage and differentiation advantages cover the two competitive advantages. The cost dvantage includes when businesses make identical or comparable products. The differentiation advantage is when a business provides better products or services in the same industry such as; the Learning Care Group and Bright Horizons. Conclusion Both the Learning care Group and Bright Horizons utilized measurement guidelines to evaluate the business success, and to evaluate the weakness and strengths of the business in order to regulate the business strategic plans to meet the present and future needs of the business.ReferencesBright Horizons. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.
brighthorizons. com/about/about. aspx Business Dictionary. (2012). Retrieved from http://www. businessdictionary.
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Strategic Management: A dynamic Perspective concepts and cases (5th ed. ). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database . Learning care group. (2012).
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