SCANNING THE MARKETING ENVIRONMENT

Scanning the marketing environment is the starting point of any new venture that
involves understanding and knowing the intricacies of the macro environment,
microenvironment, and internal environment. With this process of scanning the general
environment, an entrepreneur can recognize various opportunities and at the same time
understand thoroughly the arena where the future business will operate. The process of seeking,
screening, and seizing is adapted to create the most suited product or service for an opportunity.
The general rule is to find the opportunity first before coming up with a new product or service,
not the other way around. This is one of the mistakes that budding entrepreneurs commit in
starting a new venture.

Seeking, Screening, and Seizing

The 3S opportunity spotting and assessment is the framework that most of the promising
entrepreneurs use to finally come up with the ultimate product or service suited for a specific
opportunity. An opportunity is an entrepreneur’s business idea that can potentially become a
commercial product or service in the future. The entrepreneur serves as the catalyst of creating a
value for the costumers through the new or innovated product or service. As a reward, the
entrepreneur earns profits when the costumers are satisfied and delighted
S1: Seeking the Opportunity
Opportunity seeking is the first step and is the most difficult process of all due to the
number of options that the entrepreneur will have to choose from. It involves the development of
new ideas from various sources as follows:
1. Macro environmental Sources
a. Steepled. This is a mnemonic for sociocultural, technological, economic,
environmental, political, legal, ethical, and demographic factors. This represents the general
environment where the entrepreneur can identify business opportunities from and where the
future business is about to operate. Any external factor or a combination of external factors from
these eight environmental forces can have a direct effect in opportunity generation and business
sustainability. These will be discussed further later sections.
b. Industry. This is the source of current trend on what is happening in the industry where
the future business will belong to. For example, the entrepreneur should be fully acclimated on
what is happening with the rice industry if he/she wants to establish a rice retailing business.
c. Unexpected opportunities from customers. Oftentimes, the most brilliant ventures
comes from the most unexpected opportunities. It may happen in unlikely situation, unlikely
places, and unlikely with people. Existing problems and bottlenecks often give rise to an
unexpected opportunity. What entrepreneur usually do is be one of the situation and change the
market’s perception of a product or service or build a new market. In the Philippines, there are a
number of budding social entrepreneurs who turned unnoticed products into superstar products
that carry also the value of social responsibility.
d. Talent, hobbies, skills, and expertise. Business opportunities do not just come from
outside forces, but also from within the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur’s talents, hobbies, skills,
and expertise can be a source of business opportunity. For example, if the entrepreneur is an
artist, why not sell his or her paintings? If he or she is a musician, why not put up a bar and
perform there? If he or she is an expert in home design, why not make it a business?
e. Irritants in the marketplace such as deterrents, problems, complains, and delays.
Generally, entrepreneurs see opportunities in situations where there is recurring problems or
sometimes when there is no more hope in solving the problem. When customers are already sick
and tired of the same old issue or problem that is when the opportunistic entrepreneur should
come in and make a difference.
f. Location. Often, entrepreneurs just have to look at their ecosystem and they will be
able to spot a business opportunity right away. For example, if the entrepreneur’s location has
many schools, than a restaurant, an eatery, or probably a computer shop might be a good
business to establish. If the entrepreneurs. If the entrepreneurs is in an island with awesome
beachfront, why not put up a hotel?