UK executives’ vision on business environment for information scanning: A cross industry study

Business environment scanning contributes a great deal to strategic intelligence gathering. However, earlier studies treat the business environment as a single entity. This study based on a multi-industry survey examined how UK executives perceive the stability of the business environment in which their companies operate, and what environmental sectors are perceived more strategically important than others for information scanning. The effort reveals that UK executives perceive the immediate-task environment information more strategically important than far-general environment information, but the perception of far environment information differs widely from industry to industry. A corporate “radar” system for business environment scanning is proposed to offer practical guidance. Our conclusion is that industry-specific environment sectors should be identified for strategic information scanning.