External Analysis - Definition, Components, & Custom Business Essays

If you want to learn about external analysis, you’re at the right place! This page will discuss the critical characteristics of this analysis, its key steps, and its components.

🔝 Top-10 External Analysis Examples

1. Bank of China: Internationalization Strategy
2. Louis Vuitton Company's Strategic Management Policies
3. External and Internal Analysis Tools in Strategic Management
4. Toyota Motor Corporation Analysis
5. Nike Marketing Plan: Marketing Mix, Concept, and Strategy Case Study
6. Qantas Airline Company Multi-Brand Approach
7. Louis Vuitton: Managing Corporate and Business Strategy
8. Coach Inc.'s Internationalization Marketing Competency
9. AT&T Company Analysis
10. Abu Dhabi Oil Company's Strategic Analysis

🔤 What Is External Analysis?

If you’re familiar with SWOT analysis, you won’t have any challenges with this topic.

External environment analysis is a comprehensive approach to evaluating the external market environment. Analysts identify and report the organization’s potential development prospects, current market position, and strategic threats. They assess the industry’s attractiveness, formulate goals, and select future business models. As a result, the company can adapt and optimize its work processes.

Some factors in the economic environment require constant monitoring and assessment. Thus, examining them with external analysis can directly affect a company’s successes or failures.

A rather attractive tool, isn’t it?

Some of the most popular external analysis tools are:

• PESTLE Analysis;
• LoNGPESTLE;
• DESTEP;
• Porter’s Five Forces;
• VRIO Framework.

What Are the Benefits of External Analysis?

The external analysis gives companies these essential benefits:

• Promoting business growth. Constant external environment monitoring enables companies to be proactive in their operations. Firms can increase sales by spotting and exploiting emerging opportunities in the market.
• Adapting to changes. External analysis tools allow companies to be operative. It allows responding to the marketplace changes on time. Therefore, the company will always be up-to-date with the requirements of its industry.
• Creating opportunities. The analysis examines and compares the competitors’ offerings. Thus, it reveals underserved markets or unsatisfied customer needs and enables the company to seize these opportunities.

🧩 Components of External Analysis

Below, we’ve listed some key components of conducting an external analysis.

👣 External Environment Analysis: Key Steps

A crucial stage in creating a strategy is analyzing the external environment. So, what are the steps of external analysis? Here, we’ll outline 5 steps in evaluating an organization’s external environment:

1. Recognize current trends. This step is vital to learn about ongoing market trends. This information is available online and offline, in databases and surveys of customers, partners, and suppliers. Companies use this data to identify customer needs or detect and confirm market trends.
2. Calculate market share. This stage evaluates the company’s performance and predicts its prospects. The higher an organization’s market share, the more influential and attractive it is for investment. The easiest way to estimate market share is to divide the company’s sales by overall market sales.
3. Examine the marketplace for competitors. Performing this step is valuable for the company’s positioning. Analysis of other companies’ competitive advantages helps the firm understand the industry’s environment. Organizations gather data on the products’ or services’ quality, price, and distribution area.
4. Recognize dangers. External threats significantly affect a company’s activities. Firms experience irreversible effects of cultural, societal, political, legal, and economic transformations.
5. Summarize the results to see the big picture. That’s the goal of the entire research. The company’s business plan depends on the accuracy of the collected data. The outcomes of the analysis will guide further decisions.

We’ve considered the core components of the external environment analysis. This tool assists in meeting the demands of the current market. It is an integrated approach that helps organizations use their potential to the fullest extent.

Our article on external analysis was helpful, and you want to learn more? Then we have good news for you. Check out our essay samples below!

📝 External Analysis Research Paper Examples

1. Netflix Company's Environmental Analysis
   Business essay sample: Netflix is a provider of on-demand internet media, which is based in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, Canada and Ireland.
2. Zappos Company's Internal and External Analysis
   Business essay sample: Zappos is an online business that specializes in the sale of clothes and shoes. The company’s mission is to provide the best customer service possible.
3. Apple Inc.'s Performance Challenges Since 2011
   Business essay sample: The essay provides insight into the Apple Company’s strategic issue in an attempt to recommend various resolutions that can be adopted to unravel its present-day challenges.
4. Under Armour Inc.’s Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
   Business essay sample: The essay focuses on Under Armour Inc., defines its mission statement, strategic profile, and prospects, provides Porter’s five forces analysis and recommendations.
5. IKEA Market Position Improvement
   Business essay sample: Researching 🔍 IKEA market position? Founded by Ingvar Kamprad at the age of 17, IKEA started in 1943 as a mail business in Sweden 🇸🇪 and has gradually grown and expanded its products over decades.
6. Emirates Airlines' Successful Strategic Management
   Business essay sample: In this strategic management paper, the focus was to determine the strategic management techniques that Emirates Airlines has been using to achieve its current levels of success.
7. Microsoft Corporation's Market Competitiveness
   Business essay sample: This research paper evaluates Microsoft's growth consistency by examining the company's background and analyzing internal factors, and external factors, business
8. Staples Incorporated's Strategy
   Business essay sample: Staples Inc. has been in the office supply business for decades. It sells a range of office products and offers technology solutions.
9. ADNOC Gas Processing Strategy
   Business essay sample: ADNOC Gas Processing (previously GASCO) was established in 1978 through joint venture among ADNOC, Shell, TOTAL, and Partex.
10. Kopi Luwak Coffee Company Marketing Strategy
    Business essay sample: The analysis of the various management and marketing principles worthy of consideration in the event where an organization plans to venture into international market.
11. Amazon Company as a Successful Management Example
    Business essay sample: Amazon Inc. has achieved the success due to its ability to differentiate its products on different websites. This strategy has increased the number of customers
12. Apple Company’s Market Share Decrease in 2015
    Business essay sample: This essay delves into the Apple Inc.’s strategic issue with a view of deriving various recommendations that can help it fix its current challenges.
13. Google Inc.'s Product Innovation and Performance
    Business essay sample: As discussed by Edenlman and Eisenmann, the Google Inc. case study analyzes the process of growth of the company in terms of product innovation and policy frameworks.
14. Wal-Mart's Low-Cost Provider Strategy
    Business essay sample: Wal-Mart employs a low-cost provider strategy that allows the company to sell the lowest priced products and make it the number one business organization in the world.
15. Toyota Motor Corporation's Marketing Plan
    Business essay sample: The market plan contains a detailed analysis of Toyota, its internal and external activity, the marketing strategies that the company uses, the marketing mix and SWOT.
16. Bank of America: Internal and External Factors
    Business essay sample: This paper provides internal and external analysis of Bank of America using the Resource-Based View and value chain analyses.
17. Amazon Company: Individual Business Case
    Business essay sample: The Amazon will need to come up with a strategy that will give it an edge over its rivals. The focus will be to determine the strategies that this firm can use in the market.
18. Wal-Mart After Entry into the Chinese Market
    Business essay sample: Wal-Mart retail was established more than four decades ago. The retail stores began expanding its operations in international markets way back in 1992.
19. Marketing Plan for Home Appliance Repair in Australia
    Business essay sample: In Australia, the scale of operations in-home repair industry is very small. There is approximately one retail store for every fourteen households in the country.
20. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC): Strategic Management
    Business essay sample: Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), is a world renown fast food brand. The company is based in the United States but has expanded its operations in numerous countries world wide.
21. Nike: Case Study
    Business essay sample: Nike has been a very leading company in the athletic footwear market. It has always given tough competition to its rivals Adidas.
22. Adam Aircrafts: Factors of Performance of the Company
    Business essay sample: Adam aircraft has seen both good and bad times in its history but with the help of excellent planning skills and management with high consideration for integrity
23. Automotive Industry. Fiat and General Motors Alliance
    Business essay sample: This paper is a case study on an alliance between Fiat and General Motors entered by the two companies in the year 2000, the crisis that arose, and how they resolved the crisis.
24. Case Analysis of Google Inc
    Business essay sample: Within a single decade, Google has jumped from an Internet based start-up to the prevailing contestant in the Internet advertising pedestal on search engine technology by the use of Information Technology.

💡 Essay Ideas on External Analysis

1. Cemex Company's Strategic Analysis
   Business essay sample: Cemex Company has grown tremendously from a local manufacturer of cement in Mexico to become the third-largest cement company in the world only behind Lafarge and Holcim.
2. Intercontinental Continental Hotel Analysis
   Business essay sample: The size of the company increased by 5% because of the addition of 9,849 rooms, which comprises 117 hotels, resulting in the general size of 629,700 rooms, that is 4,303 hotels.
3. Integrated Strategy Project: Thermo King
   Business essay sample: The integrated strategy attempts to take an internal and external analysis of Thermo King and attempts to draw up a conclusion on the strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats
4. Strategic Plan for Dubai World Trade Centre
   Business essay sample: In order to develop a reasonable strategic plan for Dubai World Trade Centre, housing keeping department, the company’s mission and dream must be integrated with its objectives
5. Solar Tracking Systems' Marketing Plan
   Business essay sample: The marketing plan analyzes the internal and external business environment in Australia to bring to market a product of a company dealing with solar tracking systems production.
6. Strategic Management: Right Strategy for the Right Results
   Business essay sample: Completed a report that provided the necessary information that explains the reason why it would be profitable for all the investors to put up a huge investment for the creation of the said mall.
7. Primark Stores Limited’s Supply Chain Management
   Business essay sample: The discussion involves an analysis of the role of supply chain management in the fashion retail sector. The analysis entails Primark Stores Limited as an example.
8. Canterra Bros Firm's Vittoria Coffee Marketing Plan
   Business essay sample: The management of Canterra Bros incorporation can increase the firms’ level of revenue through effective repositioning of its Vittoria coffee brand in the market.
9. The Broadway Café's E-Commerce Introduction
   Business essay sample: Broadway Café is a retail outlet that provides economic internet accessibility to its customers with bakery items, coffee, and other specialty items.
10. Tesco: Human Resource Management
    Business essay sample: The analysis of Tesco Inc. is expressed through the investigation of such factors as political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and environmental.
11. Sony Ericsson Company's Marketing Plan
    Business essay sample: This marketing plan depicts the importance of situation analysis for setting the objectives and strategies, so Sony Ericsson will be able to target all segments in the UK.
12. Business Decisions of General Motors
    Business essay sample: The statistical analysis of the internal and external data of GM shows that the company should leverage the opportunities available from the emerging nations especially the BRIC countries
13. Essentials of Strategic Management. Nucor Corporation
    Business essay sample: In order for Nucor Corporation to attain its low cost leadership strategy, the firm’s management team should improve on its strategic management process.
14. IKEA: Essentials of Strategic Management
    Business essay sample: One of the issues with which IKEA is dealing is diversity, as the company expands and develops itself, the management of the company is trying to keep its core values alive.
15. Strategic Analysis of Coach Inc
    Business essay sample: The report of Coach Inc begins with a strategic analysis of the company with a detailed SWOT analysis of the organization based on its current position.
16. Sprague Warner-Kenny Corporation: Company Information
    Business essay sample: Due to its uniqueness and diversification of the food industry, its share price raised three times above in 1946; later on, it had named Consolidated Foods Corporation.
17. Solar Flare Company's International Business Strategies
    Business essay sample: Solar Flare Company intends to open a business in India. It is expected that it carries out some feasibility studies to determine the potentiality of the market.
18. Research Proposal on Ipad From Apple INC
    Business essay sample: The company has a very high cost of selling, marketing, distribution, and advertisement which draws down its sales revenue.
19. California Pizza Kitchen's Strategic Analysis
    Business essay sample: California Pizza Kitchen’s external analysis scans the external environment for factors that might open up new opportunities or present threats to survival.
20. Ryanair: The Low-Fares Airline
    Business essay sample: From 1990 until today, Ryanair established itself as a low fare and no-frills airline in Europe followed by the business model of South West Airline of the USA.
21. Halfords: Internal and External Analysis of the Company
    Business essay sample: Halfords Group has the local and international community as its external environment. On the other hand, its employees and suppliers are its internal environment.
22. External Analysis in the US Retail Industry
    Business essay sample: The US retail market is full of political influence since it includes the people and the people are the building blocks of all politics.
23. Sheikh Mohammed and the Making of “Dubai, Inc”
    Business essay sample: Sheik Mohammed began his journey to leadership while he was only 19 years. Dubai Inc. is a conglomerate owned largely by sheik Mohamed who is also the leader of the government.

👍 Good External Analysis Essay Examples to Write about

1. Apple Inc.: Strategic Management Case
   Business essay sample: Strategic management involves a continuous process that includes setting targets, implementing them, evaluating them and making changes where necessary.
2. Management Strategies for Almarai Company
   Business essay sample: These are the significant factors to check the effectiveness of the newly incorporated growth strategy of market entry of Almarai in the Gulf region with market penetration tools.
3. International Strategic Management Overview
   Business essay sample: The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive overview of the essential topics of international strategic management.
4. Strategic Plan for BAE Systems
   Business essay sample: The analysis of BAE Systems provides the basis for their future strategic decisions and allows creating plans on increasing the efficiency of the company's operations.
5. Human Resources Management and Its Development Role
   Business essay sample: A thorough review of the organisational structure is the shortest path to identifying all the redundancies and addressing them in the most viable manner.
6. Netflix: Business Analysis and Issue Identification
   Business essay sample: The purpose of this article is to assess Netflix's competitive strategy and determine its performance now and in the long term.
7. Strategic Management Plan for BACHI Barcelona
   Business essay sample: BACHI Barcelona is an up-and-coming business that has great opportunities for succeeding in case if an appropriate strategy is put in place. This article provides such a strategy.
8. Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Transformation
   Business essay sample: Enterprise Rent-A-Car (ERAC) has gone through a business transformation to boost its capabilities and drive competitive differentiation.
9. Walt Disney World: Financial Analysis
   Business essay sample: The financial analysis of the Walt Disney World organization demonstrates that – being a part of an extremely big company – possesses every possible instrument to perform flawlessly.
10. Human Resources and Their Developing Role
    Business essay sample: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the developing role of HR, its internal and external factors, strategy formulation and implementation, etc.
11. Amazon Company: Internal & External Analysis
    Business essay sample: This paper discusses the Amazon industry, the discussion includes the internal organizational audit, external stakeholder analysis, and strategic plan of the company.
12. Netflix Inc.'s Business Strategy and Strategic Analysis
    Business essay sample: The competitive pricing of Netflix services allows the company's subscribers to watch unlimited content for an affordable price.
13. Oppo Mobile: Development External Factors Evaluation
    Business essay sample: The paper purposes to develop External Factors Evaluation of Oppo Mobile Telecommunications and assess its performance by taking benefits coming from opportunities and evading threats.
14. Advanced Micro Devices Company's Strategic Analysis
    Business essay sample: In this paper, the researcher was interested in conducting a strategic analysis of the AMD company to understand the growth that it has achieved in the market over the years.
15. Information Technology in the Perisher Blue Resort
    Business essay sample: The paper analyses the current situation in the Perisher Blue resort, the competition in the industry and develop an action plan.
16. Information Systems Strategic Planning in Business
    Business essay sample: The aim of the document facilitates easier realignment of the information technologies to the business objectives and the management plan.
17. Business Plan E & D Hamburger Restaurant
    Business essay sample: This business plan presents a marketing, financial and operational analysis of the E & D Hamburger Restaurant.
18. Business-Plan for the HAS Company
    Business essay sample: The purpose of this business plan is to offer a concise explanation of the business goals for which the company intends to venture.
19. Internal and External Matrix Analysis: The Vine Marketplace
    Business essay sample: This paper is an executive summary in memo format about internal and external matrix analysis for tracking down the history and success of on the vine marketplace.
20. Pfizer Company’s Financial Statement Evaluation
    Business essay sample: Pfizer Company’s financial statement ratios and credit ratings will convince the bank loan managers of the ability to pay the company’s maturing bank loan installments on time.
21. Small Business Agrotourism Management Model
    Business essay sample: The article explores various aspects which must be considered when building an effective agrotourism management model through the study of cases
22. An External and Internal Analysis of McDonald’s Corporation
    Business essay sample: The present paper conducts an external and internal analysis of McDonald's corporation to identify strategic issues that can influence the financial performance of the company.
23. Asian Inc.'s Situational Analysis
    Business essay sample: In its mission statement, Asian Inc. commits itself to provide economic empowerment to Asian American communities.

🎓 Simple Research Paper Examples with External Analysis

1. Internal and External Equity Comparison
   Business essay sample: The article argues in an organization, compensation focuses on what is referred to as extrinsic rewards which can be financial, social or material.
2. Apple Inc.'s Performance and Challenges Analysis
   Business essay sample: Apple is a leading firm in the global technology industry. This paper will analyze the performance and challenges that Apple faced from 1990 to 2014.
3. Analysis of Essential Monitors Inc
   Business essay sample: Essential monitors Inc was founded in 1999 by Ronald Irwin with the main aim of providing professional quality LCD monitors for the consumer market.
4. Under Armour Business Strategy's External Analysis in 2013
   Business essay sample: Under Armour (UA) is one of the largest producers of sportive apparel and accessories in the world. It was founded in 1996 by a former football player, Kevin Plank.
5. BMW Company's External and Internal Analysis
   Business essay sample: Current BMW's position in the market can be outlined as relatively stable since the company makes sure it pushes its boundaries and creates additional growth opportunities.
6. Salesforce Inc.'s External and Internal Analysis
   Business essay sample: The paper aims to present the external analysis of Salesforce Inc. through Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT, forecasting tools and recommendations regarding the investment.
7. Internal and External Factors of Tesla
   Business essay sample: The paper presents a PEST and SWOT analysis of Tesla Inc; it incorporates an analysis of its market pricing and distribution approaches.
8. Tempur Sealy International Perfomance
   Business essay sample: The strategic analysis will discuss the performance of Tempur Sealy International relative to its technology industry.
9. Tim Hortons Inc.: Strategic Analysis
   Business essay sample: Tim Hortons Inc.’s vision articulates what the company hopes to become in the future while helping direct its strategies such as expansion into the global presence.
10. BMW Company's Business Environmental Analysis
    Business essay sample: The paper critically evaluates the impacts that both macro and micro factors have on the organization's business objectives and decision-making.
11. Costco Wholesale Corporation's Operations Management Evaluation
    Business essay sample: Evaluation of the operations management of Costco Wholesale Corporation demonstrated the adequacy of currently applied solutions to the identified challenges by the company.
12. Australian Biscuit Market's Analysis
    Business essay sample: Biscuit is considered a high-calorie snack in our daily life. It is eaten as extra food for people, which is usually sweet. The raw material includes flour, starch, fat, and sugar.
13. Amazon Company's Resources and Competencies
    Business essay sample: The external analysis incorporates the Five Forces developed by Porter as well as the Political, Environmental, Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Legal framework.
14. Innovation Bridges–C. Me Smart Designs Ltd’s Marketing Challenges
    Business essay sample: This case study is comprehensive marketing research of the company “Innovation Bridges–C. Me Smart Designs Ltd,” studying its status and prospects in the modern Britain market.
15. Wiggo: Marketing Feasibility Report
    Business essay sample: In the implementation of this plan, Wiggo needs to be aware of the external factors, which may influence its operations as it is revealed by PESTLE analysis.
16. WeWork Singapore Firm's Strategies for Dealing with COVID-19
    Business essay sample: WeWork is a global company that engages in the purchase and lease of office properties across the country and lets them to businesses seeking office spaces.
17. Trader Joe’s: Cheap Gourmet & Price-Value Equation
    Business essay sample: This paper aims to find out how Trader Joe's manages to keep costs low, sell their products cheap, and have unique brands which appeal to buyers.
18. The Next Closet Expanding Service to South Korea
    Business essay sample: Regarding the fact that the company The Next Closet is considering expanding its services to South Korea, it is important to look at the country's interest rates.
19. Strategic Analysis of the Food Chain: McDonald's
    Business essay sample: The aim of this paper is to analyze the strategic structure of the well-known company McDonald's and learn about external and internal factors of their job.
20. Yum! Brands Inc.'s Strategic Management
    Business essay sample: Yum! Brands, Inc's, mission is the statement of building the world's most loved, fastest, and most trusted growing restaurant brands.
21. Netflix: The Founders of Digital Streaming
    Business essay sample: Netflix is a multinational technology and media company that is credited for popularising the concept of streaming media from modern electronic devices.
22. Training 4 U Services Ltd Project Report
    Business essay sample: This report discusses ways through which Training 4 U Ltd will transit its learning onto an online platform that will work well with its learners.
23. United Airlines Company's Post-Covid-19 Project
    Business essay sample: The premise for the current paper is the substantial drop in the number of airline passengers due to fears of traveling during the pandemic.