PEST Analysis

Identify the influences on your business or unit

What external forces are acting on your organisation?

Define the external context for your strategy

A key technique in your strategic toolkit

 

Assess the external influences on your organisation

PEST Analysis identifies the external influences affecting an organisation or unit.  PEST is an acronym for external influences in the following environments:

  • Political
  • Economic
  • Social
  • Technological

Sometimes this is extended (as described by Lynch) to include the:

  • Environmental and
  • Legal

arenas and forms the acronym PESTEL.

This is a popular technique in strategic and tactical planning and is often used within strategic planning processes with other techniques such as SWOT Analysis.  It provides a helpful framework to give context to the many issues facing an organisation and grouping them into these categories helps teams focus and agree what actions are required to manage them.

Join and use this framework to identify the external influences on your unit 

 

See also: 
SWOT
TOWS analysis
Porter's 5 Forces
Michaud and Thoenig's Strategy Orientation
Boston Consulting Group Matrix

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