Identifying Value Creation Opportunities: The External Analysis

Abstract

As we discussed in the previous chapter, firms may identify current problems or may foresee future problems in their ability of successfully operating in a changing environment. In order to assess the current situation in the market or broader environment and to identify future challenges that a firm’s environment will impose on the organization, it is important for the organization to take an outside-in approach. Only then opportunities for both present and future customer value creation are to be identified. It is the objective of an external analysis to obtain such insight in both the current and future environment of the organization and to identify key success factors. The latter can be defined as the requirements set by the current and future environment which a company will have to meet in order to be able to obtain and maintain a competitive advantage in the market place.

‘If the dinosaurs had done an environmental analysis, they wouldn’t be extinct’

—Kevin J. Clancy & Robert S. Shulman