The Alanis Business Academy Podcast: Business Education for Everyone Else | Matthew Alanis

This is the final episode of a three part series about the external environment. If you haven't done so already, you may want to check out episodes 7 and 8, which include a discussion of the general business and specific business environments respectively. You can find these episodes on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, and alanisbusinessacademy.com.

Now that you know about the general and specific business environments, it's time to learn what businesses can do about external environments. How do managers identify and evaluate opportunities and threats to their business? Managers can engage in several behaviors to help better understand the environments that they operate within. In this episode learn about these steps so that you, too, can accurately evaluate the external environment.

This episode is the second of a three part series about the external environment. If you haven't done so already, you may want to check out Episode 7: Evaluating the External Environment, Part 1. You can find this episode on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, and alanisbusinessacademy.com.

As we discussed in our last episode, the general environment includes those factors that indirectly affect all businesses. These factors include the economy, as well as technological, sociocultural, and political and legal trends. So do factors exist that perhaps affect one business and not another? To answer that question we look to the second area of external environments: the specific environment.

The environments that businesses operate in today are filled with uncertainty. Despite this, managers still attempt to anticipate changes in their environments so they can adapt accordingly. But where do managers look to identify these changes? To answer that question, we'll explore the general business environment.

The term bureaucracy certainly has a negative connotation in today's society. But is bureacracy really all that bad? To answer that question, we explore German sociologist Max Weber's early management theory Bureaucratic Management.

What is good management? We look beyond the textbook definitions and discuss Henri Fayol's 14 Principles of Management.

Over 100 years ago, Frederick Winslow Taylor highlighted what he believed to be the biggest threat to society: national efficiency. Why was national efficiency such a concern? And how can we improve the efficiency of our organizations?

Have you ever wondered what your manager actually does? It may be more than you think.

How does a manager's position in the organization affect their responsibilities? We look to answer that question, as well as highlight some of the different types of managers seen in today's organizations.

What is management? In our first episode we dive into the function of management and discuss the four common functions of managers.