Page 28 - DMGT401Business Environment

Unit 1: Indian Business Environment

(c) Forecasting: Forecasting is concerned with the development of plausible projections Notes
of directions, scope, speed and intensity of environment change, to lay out the
evolutionary path of anticipatory change. There are number of key analytic tasks
and outputs involved in forecasting. The first concern untangling of forces that
drive the evolution of a trend. The second concern understanding the nature of the
evolutionary path; that is whether the change is a fad or of some duration, or cyclical
or systematic in character. The third concern more or less clearly delineating the
evolutionary path or paths leading to projections and alternatives futures. Forecasting
is well focused and is much more deductive and complex activity.
(d) Assessment: Assessment involves identifying and evaluating how and why current
and projected environmental change will affect strategic management of an
organization. In assessment, the frame of reference moves from understanding the
environment – the focus of scanning, monitoring and forecasting – to identifying
what that understanding of environment means for the organization. Assessment
thus tells about the implication of environment change on the organization.

There is not always a linear relationship between scanning, monitoring, forecasting and
assessment. If some trends are disclosed in scanning process an organization can directly jump
to find out how it is going to influence the organization. Even after having the assessment of the
external environment factor an organization may continuously monitor and forecast the factor
about is future development. So sometime assessment monitoring and forecasting go
simultaneously. A good strategist always keep an eye on development in environment.

Example: Like when Vijay Mallaya came to know that there is some internal problem in
Chabaria (owners of Shaw Wallace) family, he started monitoring it and when he found suitable
time he purchased his arch rival that is Shaw Wallace and became second largest brewery of
world.

1.3.2 Environment Technology Opportunities Portal

The full form of ETOP is Environmental Technology Opportunities Portal. It is a Web site. It is
designed to present programs that foster development of new cost-effective environmental
technologies. It is an education-based organization. It concentrates on workplace skills and job
competencies. It is a national joint labor/management program. It improves the relationship
between the Union and the Company. It focuses on job security and advances productivity
through education and training. ETOP, Inc. is a joint labor/management education and training
program. It relays information on existing EPA environmental technologies for air, water, and
waste treatment and control. Its mission is to provide worker education and training for IBEW
represented employers to enhance individual employability and improve employer productivity.
To achieve its mission it applies some core values to all of its corporate activities, which are
given as under:

1. History: ETOP is a joint labor/management program that was negotiated in 1986 between
the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and AT&T, now Lucent
Technologies, to provide IBEW represented employees with education and training
opportunities. To carry out this mission, the ETOP organization was established. It is
governed by a Board of Directors and professionally managed by two Co-Executive
Directors. In 2000, ETOP revised its by-laws to become a multi-employer organization.
The IBEW endorsed ETOP as the training program of choice for IBEW manufacturing
members in September 2001.

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