The Analysis of the Impact of Macro-environmental Factors on Management of Logistics Service Provided by the Selected Company

Abstract

The analysis of macro-environment, due to substantial impact on the functioning of the enterprise on the market, has great significance for its strategic, tactical and operational development. The most popular method of the analysis of macro-environment is PEST analysis which groups and analyzes four sectors and its name comes from the initials of the names of the groups of the examined factors, i.e. Political and legal, Economic, Social and Technological and technical factors. The aim of the paper is to analyze the impact of macro-environmental factors - PEST on management of logistics service provided by the selected company offering courier services. In particular, in the paper, there has been conducted the analysis of the trends of macro-environmental factors affecting management of logistics service provided by the company and, subsequently, there has been proposed the most likely scenario.

Headnote

Abstract

The analysis of macro-environment, due to substantial impact on the functioning of the enterprise on the market, has great significance for its strategic, tactical and operational development. The most popular method of the analysis of macro-environment is PEST analysis which groups and analyzes four sectors and its name comes from the initials of the names of the groups of the examined factors, i.e. Political and legal, Economic, Social and Technological and technical factors.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the impact of macro-environmental factors - PEST on management of logistics service provided by the selected company offering courier services. In particular, in the paper, there has been conducted the analysis of the trends of macro-environmental factors affecting management of logistics service provided by the company and, subsequently, there has been proposed the most likely scenario.

Keywords: logistics service, management, macro-environmental factors, PEST analysis, scenario method, courier services

JEL Classification: M21, O18

Introduction

The aim of the paper is the analysis of the impact of macro-environmental factors - PEST on management of logistics service provided by the selected company offering courier services.

The selected company is the leading provider of courier services in Poland, being a part of the international network. In Table 1, there are presented the basic figures concerning the activity of the selected company.

The range of services of the selected company is addressed both to individual customers and the companies cooperating with it. The main customers of the network are the companies such as Adidas, Würth, Esprit, EMI, Intersport, Yamaha and MGL Metro. The company provides complex solutions in the field of domestic and international forwarding services, effectively delivering consignments to more than 220 countries in the world [Internal materials of the company, 2016].

The range of services of the company is the following:

- domestic services:

a) standard domestic service,

b) express domestic service,

c) urban service,

d) IT solutions,

- special services - value-added services,

- international services:

a) standard international service,

b) express international service,

c) pallet delivery service.

1.The analysis of the impact of macro-environmental factors on management of logistics service provided by the selected company - PEST analysis

The analysis of macro-environment, due to substantial impact on the functioning of the company, has great significance for its strategic, tactical and operational management [Gierszewska & Romanowska, 1998]. The most popular method of the analysis of macro-environment is PEST analysis [Frederick et al., 2011], which groups and analyzes four sectors and its name comes from the initials of the names of the groups of the examined factors [Manktelow, 2005]:

- Political factors,

- Economic factors,

- Social factors,

- Technological and technical factors.

In Table 2, there are presented macro-environmental factors that exert impact on management of logistics service provided by the selected company.

2.The analysis of the trends of macro-environmental factors on management of logistics service provided by the selected company

After the conducted analysis of macro-environmental factors, influencing the provision of logistics service in the selected company, another step which is necessary to build the scenario is to determine the strength of the impact of individual factors of this environment on the provided service [Penc-Pietrzak, 2004]. In Table 3, is presented the strength of the impact and probability of the occurrence of individual macro-environmental factors.

3.The most likely scenario for the selected company

Scenario methods are one of the most perfect and most frequently applied ways of the analysis and forecasting of macro-environment in professional strategic planning [Krupski, 2005].A scenario method consists in the isolation of processes and phenomena in the environment which have strategic impact on the analyzed company or its selected area or will do in the future. Among the scenarios there can be identified three types:

- optimistic scenario,

- pessimistic scenario,

- most likely scenario.

In the present paper, there has been proposed the most likely scenario in which there is taken into account the sum of trends that are most likely to occur, irrespective of the potential strength of the positive or negative impact. In Table 4, there is presented the method of the most likely scenario.

In the most likely scenario, the positive impact of the environment prevails over the negative impact on logistics services provided by the selected company. The narrowest range occurs in the technological and technical sphere, therefore, this sphere is the most easily predictable. The most likely scenario does not assume the negative impact of the environment of factors of the technological and technical sphere. All the analyzed factors in this sphere, such as: rate of changes of transport technologies, size of the budget for research and development, innovativeness of logistics service offered by the company, rapidity of transfer of logistics services, development of sales processes of logistics services in the company, strongly influence the company. Their impact will take on even greater significance since they indicate an upward trend referring both to the strength of the impact and the probability of the occurrence.

The last element of PEST analysis of logistics service provided by the company is the graphic presentation of the results of the scenarios: optimistic, pessimistic and most likely and drawing appropriate conclusions from them. Figure 1 presents the graphic interpretation of the results of the paper.

Conclusions

Both PEST analysis, the analysis of the trends of macro-environmental factors and the scenario method indicate how much management of logistics service in the selected company is dependent on the social and economic sphere, which is indicated by the wide ranges of the chart in Figure 1. The above mentioned analyses show that the technological and technical sphere is the most stable and most clearly pinpoints the good sides of the company and opportunities for the development of logistics services. The weaknesses of logistics services in the company are, among others, the social and economic spheres. These are the ones that emphasize and create what trends and likes lead to the cash flow in the company and greater sales of logistics services. The most surprising is the political and legal sphere which, to some extent, influences revenues from logistics services, e.g. possessing appropriate licenses.

References

References

Frederick, P.M., Agnes, F.V., John, M.B. (2011) PEST Analysis, Germany: VDM Publishing

Gierszewska, G., Romanowska, M. (1998) Analiza strategiczna przedsiçbiorstwa, Warszawa: PWE

Krupski, R. (2005) Zarzqdzanie przedsiqbiorstwem w turbulentnym otoczeniu, Warszawa: PWE

Manktelow, J. (2005) "PEST Analysis: Understanding "Big picture: forces of change", available on-line at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_09.htm [22.06.2016].

Internal materials of the company (2016) Czçstochowa

Nogalski, B., Ronkowski, R. (2007) Wspôlczesne przedsiçbiorstwo. Problemy funkcjonowania i zatrudniania, Warszawa: TNOiK

Penc-Pietrzak, I. (2004) "Analizy systemowe metodq PEST i PRESTCOM", Ekonomika i Organizacja Przedsiçbiorstwa, vol. 2: p. 3-11