PEST analysis
In business analysis, PEST analysis ("political, economic, socio-cultural and technological") describes a framework of macro-environmental factors used in the environmental scanning component of strategic management. It is part of an external environment analysis when conducting a strategic analysis or doing market research, and gives an overview of the different macro-environmental factors to be taken into consideration. It is a strategic tool for understanding market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations.
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PEST analysis was developed in 1967 by Aguilar as an environmental scanning framework. Aguilar argued that firms must scan the economic, technical, political and social categories (ETPS) that may affect strategy, defining environmental scanning as follows, “scanning for information about events and relationships in a company’s outside environment, the knowledge of which would assist top management in its task of charting the company’s future course of action.”