ETOP  (Environmental Threat and Opportunity Profile  ) Analysis

The identification of environmental issues is helpful in structuring the environmental appraisal so that the strategists have a good idea of where the environmental opportunities and threats lie.

Structuring the environmental appraisal is a difficult process as environmental issues do not lend themselves to a straightforward classification into neat categories. An issue may arise simultaneously from more than one sector of the environment. Strategists have to use their experience and judgement to place the different environmental issues where they mainly belong, so that clarity emerges.

There are many techniques available to structure the environmental appraisal. One such technique, suggested by Glueck, is that of preparing an environmental threat and opportunity profile (ETOP) for an organisation.

ETOP (environmental threat and opportunity profile) is a technique to structure environmental issues.

ETOP involves:

• Dividing the environment into different sectors. each sectors can be subdivided into sub sectors.
• analyzing the impact of each sector and subsector on the organization
• Describe the impact in the form of statement.

A summary ETOP may only show the major factors for the sake of simplicity.

Advantage of ETOP

• it provides a clear of which sectors and sub sectors have favorable impact on the organization. it helps interpret the result of environmental analysis
• the organization can assess it competitive position
• appropriate strategies can be formulated to take advantage of opportunities and counter the threat

 Environment threat and opportunity profile (ETOP) for a bicycle company

Up arrows indicate favorable impact: down arrows indicates unfavorable impact, while horizontal arrows indicates a neutral impact