Various external and internal influencing factors may affect strategic plans. In the video, Dr. Randall Mauldin discusses several critical points falling into each category (Fulmer, 2013). Among internal aspects, he mentions stakeholders, company strategic plan (including increasing market share and revenue), and staff. External factors include government policy, such as healthcare costs, interest rates, inflation, and labor cost. The difference between these two categories of factors is that while external points represent the company’s environment, internal aspects are related to its place in this environment and self-positioning. The former could not be under control; on the other hand, the latter are manageable and could be changed for achieving the required goals. However, some of the mentioned factors have crossover potential and are related simultaneously to internal and external areas of influence. First, labor cost in the market is, to a large extent, determined by the policy of all the business actors and the competition between them. Thus, the internal strategy of a particular company, including its employee compensation policy, contributes to forming global market characteristics, such as labor cost. Second, the company’s strategic plan, although it cannot change the external influencing powers, to some extent determines the level of such influence. For example, if the company makes considerable efforts in environmental research, it would be better prepared and could sometimes predict global policy change and innovations, decreasing its vulnerability. Third, business stakeholders, considered as internal factors, in some cases could have state-level competencies, thus, being able to lobby the interests of the company on the global level. In summary, while it is possible to split various influencing factors into two categories, they are interlaced and often may be characterized as crossover decision points.
Reference
Fulmer, T. (2013). Strategic planning step 3: Internal vs external factors [Video]. YouTube.