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In business analysis, PEST analysis (political, economic, social and technological) is a framework of external macro-environmental factors used in strategic management and market research.
PEST analysis was developed in 1967 by Francis Aguilar as an environmental scanning framework for businesses to understand the external conditions and relations of a business in order to assist managers in strategic planning. It has also been termed ETPS analysis.
PEST analyses give an overview of the different macro-environmental factors to be considered by a business, indicating market growth or decline, business position, as well as the potential of and direction for operations.
Components
The basic PEST analysis includes four factors: political, economic, social, and technological.
Political
Political factors relate to how the governments intervene in economies.
Specifically, political factors comprise areas including tax policy, labour law, environmental law, trade restrictions, tariffs, and political stability. Other factors include what are considered merit goods and demerit goods by a government, and the impact of governments on health, education, and infrastructure of a nation.
Economic
Economic factors include economic growth, exchange rates, inflation rate, and interest rates.
Social
Social factors include cultural aspects and health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, career attitudes and safety emphasis. Trends in social factors affect the demand for a company's products and how that company operates. Through analysis of social factors, companies may adopt various management strategies to adapt to social trends.
Technological
Technological factors include R&D activity, automation, technology incentives and the rate of technological change. These can determine barriers to entry, minimum efficient production level and influence the outsourcing decisions. Technological shifts would also affect costs, quality, and innovation.
Variants
Many similar frameworks have been constructed, with the addition of other components such as environment and law. These include PESTLE, PMESII-PT, STEPE, STEEP, STEEPLE, STEER, and TELOS.
Legal and regulatory
Legal factors include discrimination law, consumer law, antitrust law, employment law, and health and safety law, which can affect how a company operates, its costs, and the demand for its products. Regulatory factors have also been analysed as its own pillar.
Environment
Environmental factors include ecological and environmental aspects such as weather, climate, and climate change, which may especially affect industries such as tourism, farming, and insurance. Environmental analyses often use the PESTLE framework, which allow for the evaluation of factors affecting management decisions for coastal zone and freshwater resources, development of sustainable buildings, sustainable energy solutions, and transportation.
Demographic
Demographic factors have been considered in frameworks such as STEEPLED. Factors include gender, age, ethnicity, knowledge of languages, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, religious belief or practice, culture and tradition, living standards and income level.
Military
Military analyses have used the PMESII-PT framework, which considers political, military, economic, social, information, infrastructure, physical environment and time aspects in a military context.
Operational
The TELOS framework explores technical, economic, legal, operational, and scheduling factors.
Limitations
PEST analysis can be helpful to explain market changes in the past, but it is not always suitable to predict or foresee upcoming market changes.
See also
References
- ^ J., Aguilar, F. (1967). Scanning the business environment. Macmillan. OCLC 495475137.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Nandonde, Felix Adamu (9 April 2019). "A PESTLE analysis of international retailing in the East African Community". Global Business and Organizational Excellence. 38 (4): 54–61. doi:10.1002/JOE.21935. ISSN 1932-2054. Wikidata Q98854703.
- ^ Walden J. (2011), Comparison of the STEEPLE Strategy Methodology and the Department of Defense’s PMESII-PT Methodology, Supply Chain Leadership Institute, accessed 10 February 2019
- Richardson, J. A Brief Intellectual History of the STEPE Model or Framework (i.e., the Social, Technical, Economic, Political, and Ecological), accessed 6 May 2019
- Wild, Dave (2023). Futurework - A Guidebook for The Future of Work. Aotearoa New Zealand: Smith & Wild. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-473-66594-4.
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{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Sridhar, R.; Sachithanandam, V.; Mageswaran, T.; Purvaja, R.; Ramesh, R.; Vel, A. Senthil; Thirunavukkarasu, E. (2016-07-02). "A Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) approach for assessment of coastal zone management practice in India". International Review of Public Administration. 21 (3): 216–232. doi:10.1080/12294659.2016.1237091. ISSN 1229-4659. S2CID 132405731.
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{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Guno, Charmaine Samala; Collera, Angelie Azcuna; Agaton, Casper Boongaling (2021). "Barriers and Drivers of Transition to Sustainable Public Transport in the Philippines". World Electric Vehicle Journal. 12 (1): 46. doi:10.3390/wevj12010046.
- Diaz Ruiz, Carlos A.; Baker, Jonathan J.; Mason, Katy; Tierney, Kieran (2020-06-15). "Market-scanning and market-shaping: why are firms blindsided by market-shaping acts?". Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. 35 (9): 1389–1401. doi:10.1108/JBIM-03-2019-0130. ISSN 0885-8624. S2CID 219736566.