Economic and Environmental Scanning

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The ability of management to collect both internal and external information and use the analysis to respond to emerging patterns and trends in the target market is critical to the company’s competitiveness. As an ongoing process, environmental scanning is used by management to investigate the interdependency of the various sectors of the target market and their respective patterns and trends. The results of the environmental scan should translate into the company’s guidelines for planning and decision-making. In comparing the environmental scans of the United States and that of Zambia, it was found that monitoring and understanding the target market’s dynamics in the legal system, crime situation, international membership focus, and economic environment is essential in the formulation of management’s response strategy.

Economic and Environmental Scanning

Before conducting business in another country management collects information on different macroeconomic indicators, environmental issues, legal processes, political trends, and patterns of events that may have a bearing on the company. The underlying assumption is that the present pace of events determines the path of future developments. It is, therefore, advised that a company conducts an environmental scan to assess the overall attraction of the target environment in terms of potential benefits, costs, and risks. The focus of this paper is to compare the United States data and Zambia in critical areas of the global environment. Definitive areas discussed range from rates of unemployment and political risk. Understanding the status and condition characterizing these environmental attributes would enable businesspeople to predict future trends and prepare responses when conducting business in the Southern region of Africa.

Population trends

The population of the United States 312,900,000 made up of 79.96 percent white, 12.85 percent black, 4.43 percent Asian, 0.97 percent Amerindian and Alaska native, 0.18 percent native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander, two or more ethnics 1.61percent ("United State Census," 2012). The population is growing at the rate of 0.963 percent. English is the official language and is spoken by 82.1 percent of the U.S. population. The size of the average household incomes makes it one of the biggest markets in the world.

The Zambian population, on the other hand, is only13, 881,000 composed of 99.5 percent indigenous Zambians and 0.5 percent Europeans, Asians, and Americans (U.S. State Department, 2012). Based on 2011 estimates, the Zambian population is growing at the rate of 3.06 percent. Although the 98.3 percent of the Zambian population speaks local languages, English, spoken by 1.

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