6 Summary

This week you looked at the wider factors that might affect an organisation and how it operates. You considered how these factors are crucial in setting the context within which organisations function, and you defined these using the acronym PEST (political, economic, social and technological).

You have also been introduced to some of the resources available to help you discover more about this wider context and have conducted a PEST analysis on your own organisation. Following this, you started to identify the resources possessed by your organisation and whether these might be appropriate in relation to the factors revealed by the PEST analysis.

You should now feel that you can:

• describe how a broad range of external factors – political, economic, social and technological – affect the way organisations operate
• understand what a PEST analysis is and how it can help you to understand your sector
• use a PEST analysis to identify the specific factors that might impact on your organisation
• identify the resources your organisation possesses to deal with these challenges.

Next week you will look at your organisation’s more immediate business context in order to reveal a more detailed picture of the sector and its important elements.

You can now go to Week 3.