Review of the week

Welcome back to Westwood Valley Business Park inside the headquarters of AGN Corp. On your learning journey this week, you’ve been introduced to SWOT and PESTLE analysis and how a company can best position itself to understand and manage external factors. The senior management team have taken over the boardroom for their Friday weekly review meeting and to consider recent updates that impact the business and its global operations. A senior adviser kicks things off and mentions that new legislation being passed this week in America is going to add extra sanctions on Asian countries like China. This may create instability in markets when the stock exchange reopens on Monday. AGN’s investments need to be best positioned for these coming announcements.

Another adviser speaks up and mentions that the unemployment figures get released next week and will reveal a significant reduction in middle-class incomes. These are AGN’s biggest client base. This will not only upset the markets, but will threaten sales through a reduction in financial confidence. A junior adviser who is eager to impress, speaks up and comments that AGN’s biggest competitor, which is the cryptocurrency markets, are expecting a huge surge in turnover due to recent product development, making investing on smartphones and tablets even easier. He also mentioned the labour laws being disputed between countries in Europe. This has the potential to disrupt international investments and make operations costlier.

In this weekly review meeting, four sections of the company’s PESTLE analysis could be easily updated. This is how easy it can be to get the ball rolling - a simple weekly update meeting with the right advisors present. If you were the CEO of AGN, what further measures would you take to protect the company against external factors?