Environmental Scanning
Your external environment is changing rapidly in complex ways:
- Information is available from a rapidly growing number of sources;
- Information about external developments is often ambiguous;
- Having the most reliable and actionable information is becoming more critical to decision-making and realizing long-term goals of your organization.
Keeping up requires that policy professionals sort through troves of updates contained in government websites, news platforms and their inboxes. Pulling the true picture from the substantial amount of noise is elusive: 53% of policy professionals cite “managing information overload” as one of their top three challenges this year, according to The Policy Insider’s Report: Shaping Policy in an Era of Uncertainty, a report from PoliticoPro.
To compound the situation, not everyone is trained to find the most authoritative, reliable and opportune information or is trained to carry out analysis about the external factors that impact their business.
One way to address this issue is to carry out an environmental scan for your organization.
Environmental scans capture key trends and issues that may impact the policy work and programs and information from environmental scanning is increasingly being used to drive the strategic planning process by business and public-sector organizations.
Research has shown that companies with managers who actively “scan” the external environment have better performance than those where less scanning occurs.
The move towards more evidence-based policies can be greatly advanced with the assistance of public affairs professionals.
Our clients rely on us to help them achieve an information advantage on the issues and entities they face in the political, policy, and business environments, because they know being deeply informed is crucial to their success.
Connect Public Affairs’ approach provides comprehensive research, intelligence and strategy for more informed decision making and more effective public policies.
Fill out the form below to learn how environmental scanning and monitoring from Connect Public Affairs can greatly benefit your organization.