PEST and PESTEL Analysis

PEST and PESTEL Analysis The PEST analysis is a tool for assessing the broad environment in which a firm operates and is trying to compete, and the model is probably best-known for providing a virtual alphabet soup of acronyms. PEST is an acronym for Political/Economic/Sociocultural/Technological; other variants include PESTEL (Political/Economic/Sociocultural/Technological/Environmental/Legal), STEP, SLEPT, PELTS, LE-PEST-C (which adds Competitive Forces to the PESTEL model), and SPECTACLES (Social/Political/Economic/Cultural/Technological/Aesthetic/Customer/Legal/Environmental/Sectoral). Apart from different degrees of breadth and the suggestion that some factors can be prioritized in different ways depending on how the acronym is arranged, there is no fundamental difference among these variations. Defining PEST Factors Political: The political environment consists of the laws, regulations, and policies that currently – or in the foreseeable future – affect the company’s operations and objectives. Economic: Economic factors are those of the wider macroeconomic environment (which is to say, practically all of it, one way or another) that affect the company. Inflation and interest rates, equity and commodity market trends, and other indicators such as unemployment or job creation rates all have an impact on the company by determining what stage of the business cycle the company’s particular market is currently in; obviously, if the company is pursuing a strategy that is not supported by its economic environment, that would be a problem. Sociocultural: Cultural characteristics and traditions, the social structure of a population in the company’s market, ethical and moral norms, and other factors such as age, education level, and language are all important factors for the company to understand and respond to appropriately with its products or services. Technological: Technological influences exist on many different levels. The most obvious one is the technology of products, for example, the rapid proliferation of increasingly capable  smartphones and tablets steadily taking market share from ‘traditional’ desktop computers and laptops. Process technology for businesses evolves almost as rapidly  because it is supported by the developing technology underlying consumer products. Managerial technology, the ideas, methods, and processes used to manage businesses competitively, also evolves. The latter is the most likely to be overlooked in an environmental analysis; most firms are fairly competent in identifying the characteristics of their environment, but often do not recognize that the means and methods which they must use to respond effectively to new circumstances need to be updated as well. You may also be interested in: How to Write Critical Analysis Critical Success Factors Analysis Five Forces Analysis How to Understand SWOT Analysis My Assignment Brief Says â€Å"PESTEL† Analysis, so Where’s the EL? Including the Environmental and Legal components of the analysis seems to be current academic fashion; in real-world managerial practice, preferences for more or fewer factors are more or less uniformly distributed – some prefer the longer and more sub-divided format like PESTEL or SPECTACLES, others prefer the shorter version. The pitfall of additional factors is that they are often not distinct enough to warrant separate attention. Environmental concerns, for example, do not exist outside the contexts of social and cultural attitudes towards the environment, political factors that affect the management of the environment, and technological impacts on the environment. Legal issues, such as laws regulating company activities, or laws governing the forming and enforcement of contracts, all derive from political factors, and to some extent, from sociocultural factors; they cannot exist on their own. For the purposes of generating the environmental overview, turning a PEST into a PESTEL or another  variation is not at all difficult. Analyzing the factors, however, becomes more complex the more letters there are in the acronym; careful attention must be paid to how the various factors are related to each other. Common Steps in a PEST Analysis In general, analyzing the factors gathered together in a PEST requires five steps: Step 1. Determine which trends are relevant to the organization.  Past strategies and their outcomes are a good guide to determining which of the factors identified are likely to have an impact on the company in the future; some will be rather obviously relevant or not, but most will require careful study. Once the relevant factors are identified, investigate their behavior over time to identify general trends and patterns that will be continued in the future. Step 2. Identify the interdependencies in the trends.  All of the relevant factors and trends are connected in some way  and either complement or conflict with one another. Using the ‘environment’ example from above, a trend towards stricter environmental laws (a Political factor) would probably be seen to correlate with stronger public attitudes about the environment (a Sociocultural factor) and growth in â€Å"green† products (an Economic and/or Technological factor). Understanding these interdependencies is important to prevent the development of strategic objectives that have unintended consequences. Step 3. Forecast specific issues for the company that the trends will create.  Again, past performance is the best source of evidence for how relevant trends will impact the company. At this point, you should begin to prioritize the trends and the issues that are created from them in order of greatest to least impact on the company and its strategy. Step 4. Develop implications of trends and environmental changes.  The trends and issues should be examined in three contexts: the possible impacts on the industry or sector as a whole; possible impacts on the company’s competitive position; and possible impacts on the position of the company’s direct competitors. Step 5. Conduct a sensitivity analysis.  The particular manner in which this is done depends on the circumstances and priorities of the firm. As a general rule of thumb, if the projected possible negative result of a particular issue is slightly below the ‘worst-case scenario’ result for the related objective, the issue should be considered critical. Advantages Disadvantages of PEST The PEST analysis is a useful precursor to internal analyses  or analyses such as SWOT analysis that combine  internal and external factors. Like the Critical Success Factors analysis, a significant part of the benefits from doing a PEST analysis come from the exercise itself. Key drivers of change in the organization or its market are identified along with their relationships, and this analysis framework provides a sort of â€Å"common language† for managerial decision-making and interaction. On the other hand, PEST does have a number of flaws. The four factors of the basic PEST model are somewhat arbitrary; the assumption that they do significantly affect every business is usually correct, but there is no guarantee of this. And of course, adding more factors to turn PEST into a PESTEL or another  variant comes at the cost of added complexity. The model also makes the assumption that historical behavior and trends predict  the future, which may not always be the case. In addition, determining which trends and factors are relevant to the company and its market is entirely subjective, as is identifying interdependencies among trends to some degree. Various data-management programs can help reduce the uncertainty  but add time and cost to the analysis.  And finally, PEST does not necessarily suggest a course of action; it helps to identify important factors and trends, but not what the organization should do about them.

Understanding The Great Gatsby First Line and Epigraph

Understanding The Great Gatsby First Line and Epigraph SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips There’s a reason why magazines regularly put together lists of the greatest first lines in all of literature: book openings make a huge impression on readers.How a book starts helps us orient in the world that the book is creating. First, it gives us our first idea of the narrator, and the type of narration we’re going to encounter. Will it be a breathy first-person confession? Or a cool and detached third-person observation? Second, it introduces the setting, letting us know where and when the story takes place - which is very important for modulating reader expectations. What we think about two people kissing in prim and proper Victorian England will be very different than what we think about the same couple in modern day Canada. So what does the beginning of The Great Gatsby reveal? Read on for the meaning of this work’s epigraph, its opening line, and its beginning paragraphs. Article Roadmap Analyzing the epigraph ofThe Great Gatsby Exploring the meaning behind The Great Gatsby's first lines Understanding Nick as a narrator from The Great Gatsby's first paragraphs Quick Note on Our Citations Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. The Epigraph Poem of The Great Gatsby The novel is prefaced by this four-line poem: Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!" - Thomas Parke D'Invilliers First, let’s analyze the poem, and then we can talk about who this D’Invilliers fellow is. â€Å"Then Wear the Gold Hat† In the most basic sense, the poem is a piece of advice. We know this because the first words, â€Å"then wear,† make it sound like we are hearing the middle of a conversation. Someone has been complaining about his romantic problems with a specific â€Å"she,† and the poem’s speaker is answering with some tips on what to do. The advice the poem is: go out of your way to impress her with your wealth/status (â€Å"gold hat†), and with your derring-do (â€Å"bounce high†). Whatever you can possibly do to attract her attention is worth it if she ends up won over, because then she will be insatiable (â€Å"I must have you†). Of course, this image of a ‘gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover’ is clownish at best and completely absurd at worst. The poemechoesthe novel's plot and characterizations: Gatsby’s approach to winning over Daisy is exactly that of the gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, desperate totry anything - including buying a giant mansion next door and throwing weekly parties in the vague hope that she would show up. The idea of putting on a hat as a way of burnishing your image is exactly what Gatsby has done in adopting his â€Å"Oxford man† persona, and relates to the way he is sometimes described as an actor or charlatan. (Nick calls Gatsby a "turbaned "character" leaking sawdust at every pore" (4.31), while owl-eye glasses party guest compares Gatsby to David Belasco, a famous theater producer in Chapter 3). At the same time, the clear mockery of the image of this lover points to the craziness of Gatsby’s obsession and the absurdity of his monomaniacal quest for Daisy’s heart. There is no dignity in the approach the poem recommends, as there is none in Gatsby’s as well. This idea is further reinforced when we consider that Fitzgerald originally wanted the novel to have a more satiric flavor (check out our article on The Great Gatsby'stitle for more details). The poem also connects with novel through the character of â€Å"she,† who stands in for Daisy. It's important to note that the "she" in the poem is someone to impress and win over, and not someone to learn anything about. Just like Daisy in the novel, the poem's "she" is a prize or an objective rather than a person. Thomas Parke D’Invilliers Guess what? There is no such poet as D’Invilliers! Fitzgerald made him up, and made up this poem as well. In fact, D’Invilliers is a minor character in This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s earlier novel about Princeton. In that book, the main character befriends D’Invilliers, who is a talented poet - but whose poems tend to ignore the problematic or unpleasant aspects of reality. Here, the assumed name and invented persona of this poet also tie into the Gatsby journey, playing into the novel's key theme of the mutability of identity. James Gatz transforms himself into the glamorous Jay Gatsby, andthis poet is a cover identity for Fitzgerald. So,D’Invilliers was based on the Fitzgerald's buddy, poet John Peale Bishop. Couldn’t the real guyhave written something to be Fitzgerald’s epigraph? The Great GatsbyFirst Lines This is how Chapter 1 of this novel begins: In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. â€Å"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,† he told me, â€Å"just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.† (1.1-2) Let’s take the Great Gatsby first lines apart in a variety of ways. What We Learn About the Narrator The first thing we figure out is that the story is going to be told in the first person (meaning it’s narrated by an â€Å"I† voice who is a character in the story and who is present at the events he describes). The second thing we see is that there is at least onetime shift in the narration. Nick is older now, but is looking back on youth and a more â€Å"vulnerable† time. There are several different ways to interpret this vulnerability, especially before we have read further: this narrator may be vulnerable to being hurt by others, to being influenced by bad surroundings/people, or maybe even to taking his dad’s advice at face value. We also get our first clue into Nick’s background: he comes from money, education, and breeding (â€Å"advantages†), which will allow him to fit in reasonably well in the old-money East Coast world that he will encounter in the novel. The Advice Given to Nick by His Father We discover that Nick has had a hard time connecting with his dad’s advice. It’s interesting that he tells us about this difficulty before he actually tells us the advice itself - almost as if he would like us to read this bit of parental wisdom with the same ambivalence and grain of salt that he himself has. Exactly why he has been â€Å"turning it over in his mind† is not spelled out, and again could be for a variety of reasons: Nick may wonder when and where it’s applicable, useful, true, or even whether he can actually stick to it. The â€Å"advice† from his father seems really more like a dig at Nick. The phrase â€Å"whenever you feel like criticizing anyone† makes it sound Nick often judges other people’s behavior and actions without considering context or circumstances. This tells us one of his main weaknesses - and it’s a pretty significant one considering Nick is going to be the eyes through which we see all the other characters! How Nick’s Father’s Advice Shapes How Nick Tells The Story Unlike the novel’s epigraph, which really is advice on what to do, Nick’s father’s words seem more like either a criticism of Nick’s bad habits or even a warning of some kind. In other words, the dad's-advice-framing-narrative makes the novelinto a reverseAesop’s fable, where the moral comes first and is followed by the story that proves the rule. Primarily, this â€Å"advice† puts a big barrier between Nick and â€Å"all the people in this world† because he has had â€Å"advantages† that they haven’t. So what are these advantages? the kind of wealth that classifies Nickas â€Å"old money† (we learn that the Carraways have been a prominent family for several generations) a sense of morality and emotional groundedness that Nick calls "the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth† (1.3), snobbishly implying that he is ethically above most other people This means that during the rest of the novel, this snobbishness and this tendency to dismiss everyone else as being inferior is something to watch for in Nick’s description of other people and events. Gotta love that Nick’s dad is basically like, â€Å"Maybe check your privilege every once in a while, son.† The Novel’sFirst SixParagraphs Nick spends the first paragraphs of the novel encouraging us to trust him and to believe in his impartiality and good judgment. Instead of launching into the plot of the story he's about to tell, Nick instead spends a significant chunk of time explaining his family background, giving us a quick bio of himself up to the point of the summer of 1922. In other words, the first six paragraphs of The Great Gatsby are devoted to establishing Nick as both an interesting character and a relatively objective narrator. Should we accept everything he says at face value? Nick as a Narrator The main question we have to ask ourselves is: is Nick's first-person narrator reliable or unreliable? On the one hand, Nicksets himself up as an objective outsider. He comes from the Midwest, a place of morality and stability, compared to the wild East that has replaced the Wild West as the siteof moneymaking and excess lawlessness. And he talks about his father’s advice making him â€Å"inclined to reserve all judgments† (1.3), which makes him an ideal confidant (â€Å"I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men† (1.3)). But on the other hand, Nicksaysthat his tolerance and neutrality isn’t infinite (â€Å"After boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit† (1.4)). So which do we believe? Is he a neutral observer? Or a secretly judgmental critic? The fact that even this early on we have two competing descriptions of Nick reveals that he is an unreliable narrator. In other words, his opinions, biases, and agenda will color the way he tells us the story. Our job will be to tease out which parts are â€Å"fact† and which parts are just a â€Å"Nick’s eye view.† Nick as a Character We also learn that writing the novel is Nick’s way of grappling with the meaning of a story in which he played a part – like a form of psychotherapy. The experience he is telling us about has caused Nick to leave the East Coast jaded and disappointed. He comes â€Å"back from the East [feeling]that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart† (1.4). Because we are listening to a story an older and wiser Nick is telling us about this formative summer, the mood is already elegiac (in other words,mournful) and sad. The summer that he is telling us about was formative, and for Nick, the novel is a coming-of-age story. It’s not surprising that Chapter 1 ends with feelings ofregret and yearning for the unreachable, culminating with the crucial image of Gatsby stretching his hands toward the unreachable Daisy. Nick’s self-reflection here is somewhat muddy. The Bottom Line How a book starts cluesus in to the novel's narrator andsetting. The Great Gatsby starts with an epigraph poem advising a disappointed lover to impress a woman until she can no longer resist. This is a mocking short summary of Gatsby’s undignified and increasingly desperate approach to winning over Daisy. The poem’s ostensible author is actually a character from one of Fitzgerald’s other novels. The first lines of The Great Gatsbyshow us afirst-person narrator, and atime shift in the narration. Nick’s father’s advice seems criticizes Nick for beingjudgmental and snobby - something we need to watch out for in Nick’s description of other people and events. The first few paragraphs of the novel set Nick up as a character and a narrator. He is an unreliable narrator: either an objective outsider or an intolerant observer. The story is a coming-of-age narrative for Nick, who is telling us about the summer of 1922as a therapy session to grapple with a formative experience. What’s Next? Explore the rest of Chapter 1: it’s plot, most important quotations, connections to the novel’s larger themes, and the main events for each character. Learn more about Nick Carrawayto see whether he lives up to his promise of objective observation, and what it is that so disappoints him about his time on the East coast. Consider how the unreliable first-person narratoraffects our understanding of the novel’s events, settings, and other characters. Get an overview of the whole novel: its plot, characters, themes, symbols, motifs, and all the other analysis that we have put together to help you make sense of what you’re reading.