The macro-environment and risk analysis

This article aims to share a framework that has been used in our projects when doing a scenario analysis for a company or an industry. It tries do contribute with a discussion about risks that could endanger either the world’s business environment or a particular country affecting a market that is of importance to a focal company.

The way we perform this analysis is using the traditional and consolidated PEST framework, dividing the variables into the global political-legal system, global economic and natural system, global socio-cultural system and finally, the global technology system. The major variables that we forecast are described in the following list. It is not a definitive list, but may contribute with some analytical points.

Starting with risks associated with the global political-legal system, we tend to consider:

Risks to democracy in some countries;

Populist measures of some Governments and its impact in social expenditures;

Risks of Government takeover by political parties causing federal overemployment;

Risks of terrorists and political attacks using food or other sources;

Risks of global arming (even atomic) procedures and weapons availability;

Risks of riots and other challenging political systems;

Risks of increase in corruption within political systems;

Risks of labor laws decreasing work productivity and increasing costs and strikes;

Risks of the growth of illegal crime systems and parallel states (drug cartels, non licit trade groups and others);

Risks of declining support to world’s organizations and institutions (World Bank, ONU, FAO…);

Risks of immigration and also migration to urban areas threatening infrastructure

Others

Within the economic and natural system, we tend to consider as a starting list:

Fiscal debt crisis in some countries; - Inflation threats in some economies;

Risks of a not sufficient economic growth mostly in poor and emerging economies pressuring Governments;

Risks of supply chain inefficiencies (bad land use and other resources);

Risks of infrastructure collapse;