Environment Scanning Strategies of Private Education Centers in Singapore

Environment scanning is an information-rich activity which helps organizations to survive in a competitive business environment. The main objective of this study was to investigate perceptions of private education centres in Singapore of the importance of environment scanning for their business success, strategies used for gathering information about business factors, frequency of information collection, and processing and utilization of the gathered information. Data from 40 private education centres was collected through a questionnaire. It was found that most of the environment scanning activities were conducted regularly by the surveyed centres, except the step of information processing and distribution. Among various business factors, information about customers and immediate competitors were perceived to be more important than other factors. Based on the findings, it is suggested that organizations should use a variety of information sources to have a more comprehensive understanding of their business environments. They should also recruit adequately trained information professionals to systematically conduct environment scanning activities.