Mtm6 white paper issue analysis
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Issue analysis aids strategic intelligence efforts by helping companies anticipate changes in their external environments and shape public policy. It involves identifying issues, analyzing them based on factors like impact and probability, and selecting issues for action. Key steps are issue identification through methods like media scanning, assessment using matrices to evaluate impact and probability, and selecting a response strategy like altering behavior, contesting the issue, or ignoring it. Issue analysis supports decision-making by prioritizing issues and recommending where to focus resources.
Mtm6 white paper issue analysis
- 1. BCG Growth/Share Portfolio Matrix ITOTW 1 All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 1 of 9 Issue Analysis Intelligence Collaborative - Mastering the Methods Series
- 2. BCG Growth/Share Portfolio Matrix All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 2 of 9 This White Paper is #6 in a series of intelligence methods being offered to members of the Intelligence Collaborative. It was developed by Dr. Craig S. Fleisher to provide a concise overview of how to apply key intelligence methods to support analysis. Although every effort is made to ensure that the information is accurate and fit for its purpose, the author and Aurora WDC make no implied or explicit warranties as to its applicability or use in your particular work context. Please direct any questions about this paper to its author at the following: Craig S. Fleisher, Ph.D. Aurora WDC Email: craig.fleisher@aurorawdc.com http://IntelCollab.com Other White Papers are available on a regular basis from http://IntelCollab.com.Related Methods in the series are: Product Life Cycle Analysis Scenario Analysis STEEP/PEST Analysis Copyright ©2013 Intelligence Collaborative powered by Aurora WDC. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, please call Dr. Craig Fleisher at +1.608.630.5869, write to him at Intelligence Collaborative powered by Aurora WDC, 215 Martin Luther King Blvd #32, Madison, Wisconsin, 53701, USA or go to http://IntelCollab.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any other form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the permission of Intelligence Collaborative powered by Aurora WDC.
- 3. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 3 of 9 Abstract Issues are gaps between the expectations of an organization’s stakeholders and the organization’s actual performance. They can create opportunities or threats to the achievement of a company’s objectives. Issue analysis aids the strategic, regulatory and competitive intelligence (CI) efforts of companies by helping them anticipate changes in their external environments and to become more proactive in shaping it through their influence on public policy (PP). The Method’s Primary Value Issuesoccurringinthe publicpolicyarenaare a fertile groundforcompanieslooking to gain or leverage marketadvantage. The earlieranorganizationgetsinvolvedinanalyzingandsubsequentlydecidinghow to addressan issue,the greaterthe discretionandrange of managerial andorganizational optionsit will have for: 1. Accelerating the development of issues that present opportunities to the organization. 2. Redirecting likely threats to more mutually beneficial ground. 3. Making recommendationsforinternal adjustmentstoadapt to changing public policy trends. Overview of the Method Issue analysis,alongwith issue monitoring, identification and action, is part of the larger public issues managementprocess.Issuesmanagement involvesprioritizingandproactively addressing public policy and reputation issues that can affect an organization’s success. Many large companies use issues management techniques to keep their external and stakeholder relations activities focused on high- prioritychallengesandopportunities.Thoughtypicallyperformedwiththe assistance of issuemanagers, public affairs or regulatory affairs professionals, it has been around in one form or another since the 1960s and remains a staple in the strategy tool-belts of most large, global companies. Issues management is normally conducted on a continual, ongoing basis in which the manager is monitoring,researching,advising,andcommunicatingaboutanumberof issues at any given time. How manyissuesare managedwill dependonthe scope,size andstrategyof the organization, as well as the publicshadowcastand turbulence of the industry in which it operates. Successful issues managers are those whoholdin-depthknowledge of theirindustry,problem-solving ability, negotiating skill, and the analytical ability to examine the issue from numerous perspectives. Where the Method Fits in Planning and Strategy Issue analysis is also part of the larger (strategic) issue management process. The strategic purpose of issue analysisistoassistdecisionmakersin identifying, monitoring and selecting issues for action that may affect the company’s profitability and competitiveness. It helps strategic decision makers to
- 4. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 4 of 9 capitalize on opportunities or to avoid unpleasant surprises that emerge from change in the broad environmental (i.e., STEEP) factors and to better address STEEP issues, see our Mastering the Methods contribution for more on STEEP analysis. Sourced from:Ashley, W.C. & Morrison, J.L. (1995). Anticipatorymanagement:10 power tools for achieving excellence into the 21st century. Leesburg, VA: Issue Action Publications. Cautions with Applying this Method Althoughissue analysiscanbe beneficial toorganizationsinseveralways,itsapplicabilityandusefulness is constrained by several factors. The most common of these include the following: It isa helpful tool fororganizations facing PP challenges, but it might not always assist them in achievingacompetitiveorstrategicadvantage.This is because some issues are institutional by nature and must be dealt with by the entire industry or the largest competitors, thereby not providing the kinds of differential advantages companies often seek in making resource allocations.
- 5. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 5 of 9 It must be carried out on an ongoing basis. For this to happen, inputs must be generated by regular monitoring and scanning of the company’s environment. This is difficult for most companiesnotonlydue tothe overwhelmingamount of data available in the environment but also because of the difficulties of selecting the important data. Many issues defy logical or rigorous assessment because they contain emotional, political or attitudinal factors, often due to social and traditional media attention, which make their evolution difficult to predict. There are fewperformance benchmarkswithwhichto evaluate the effectiveness or success of the issue analysisprocess.Thiscanleadtothe under-allocationof resources,eventhough many managersrecognize thatitis importantregardlessof the unreliabilityof results.This also makes it difficult to derive direct correlation between intervening in issues and resultant financial or market measures. Applying the Method The issue analysistaskisto take the environmental datagathered during scanning and monitoring, sort it intoinformationalcategories,rankit, evaluate it according to selected criteria, and draw conclusions for managerial decisions. Experts suggest that three tasks are precursors to effective issue analysis: 1. Issue identification and forecasting 2. Issue analysis and assessment 3. Selection of issues – response patterns and types Step 1: Issue identification and forecasting Before anissue can be analyzed,ithasto be identified.The techniqueslistedhereare some of the more popular ones for identifying issues. Content analysis. This technique involves scanning media, web sites, news sources, journals, books,articles,reports,newsletters,speechesandsoforth.The approach and the resultscan be either quantitative or qualitative. Scenario development.Scenariosare writtendescriptionsof plausible alternative futures based on specifiedassumptionsaboutrelevantenvironmental forces(frequentlycategorizedasSTEEP) and their interactions. We describe this in greater depth in Chapter 10. Survey techniques.The majortechniquesinthis categoryincludepublicandstakeholderopinion polling,attitudinalsurveysand Delphi panels. Delphi panels use a sequence of questionnaires distributed to experts in which the responses to one questionnaire are used to produce successive questionnaires. Anysetof informationavailable tosome experts and not to others is passedalong,allowingeachpersononthe panel tohave the same informationtoproduce hisor her forecast. Delphi panels improve the use of expert opinion through polling based on anonymity, statistical display and feedback of reasoning.
- 6. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 6 of 9 Step 2: Issue analysis and assessment Some of the approaches described in Step 1 can also be used to help you assess issues, especially through processes like Delphi panels and scenario development. Several other techniques are often used for analyzing and assessing issues, the most popular of which are discussed in the following sections. Issues distance approach One approach isto lookat issuesbasedonthe distance between the organization and the issues under consideration. Issues would then be identified into three broad categories: 1. Current issues. These are already under consideration by PP makers (Stage 3 of the issue life cycle), and organizations are forced to react to them. 2. Emergingissues.These are still forming (moving from Stage 1 to Stage 2 of the issue life cycle) and are likelytobe coming onto the formal PP-making agenda in the form of legislation in the nearfuture. The company can still influence these issues by proactive and pre-emptive public affairs actions. 3. Societal issues. These are vague and frequently remote concerns that may or may not affect businessinterestsinthe future. For the time being, and until they become better understood, they are not issues with which the company should be actively concerned. Issue impact approach Anotherapproachisto base the classificationof the identified issue on the range or number of people impacted, the severity and immediacy of impact of the issue, and the cost of solving the problems relating to the issue. The use of these three criteria results in the following classification: Universal issues These issues affect a large number of people, have a direct and personal impact on them, and are viewed as being serious. They are usually not of a permanent nature and are characterized by such eventsasenergyandinflationarycrisesoraregional uprisingbysmall groups.In these cases, the public generally looks to government for a quick solution. Advocacy issues These are issues for which the public seeks governmental action to resolve. They are usually complex and build steadily over time. Issues such as the deregulation or regulation of certain industries, the provision of child daycare facilities or foreign investment guidelines commonly fit into this category. Selective issues These issuestypicallyconcernspecificstakeholdergroups.Theyusuallygenerate coststothe public, but the benefitstendtogoto the stakeholdergroupswhopromotedthe issue.The stakeholders tend to be identifiable by characteristics such as demography (for example, the unique job and retirement concerns held by baby boomers), geography (for example, urban dwellers concerned about the provisionof satisfactoryschoolsinrun-downinnercityareas),occupation(forexample,the provision of benefits to migrant workers) or sector (for example, the protection of certain forests from logging activity).
- 7. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 7 of 9 Technical issues These issues are generally not well known nor a concern to most members of the public. Experts or specialists are most concerned about these issues, and they usually end up being settled within the regulatory framework. Issues priority, leveraging and scoring matrices Giventhe large numberof issuesinanorganization’senvironment,youneed to make an assessment of all the issues in order to recommend to decision makers which ones should be selected for action and resource allocation.Because all organizationshave limited resources, and the number of issues it faces at any pointintime may be expansive, efforts should be made to determine where the organization’s actions produce the greatest positive effects overall. To guide you through this process, there are some important questions that you need to answer: Where is the issue in its stage of development? How probable is it that the issue will evolve so that a government body will legislate on it and cause the issue to have a material impact on the organization? What is the likely effect of the expected public policy on the organization’s competitiveness, market share, or profitability? Doesthe organizationhave the capabilitiestoinfluence the issue evolutionprocessor the range or nature of possible governmental responses? Step 3: Selection of issues – response patterns and types A company’sresponse toanissue needstobe a coordinatedand planned set of actions, some of which may be internal andsome of whichwill occurinthe external orPPenvironment.Itishelpful to consider these response patterns in making an action recommendation to the organization’s decision makers. There are several ways that an issue may be responded to by an organization, including the following: The organization could alter its behavior, that is, its policies or activities, in such a way as to reduce or eliminate the pressures stakeholders are feeling. Johnson & Johnson did this in the USA withthe newpackagingandsealingof itspain medication, Tylenol, after it was discovered that ithad beentamperedwith.One positive side effect of proactive behavior such as this was that the company may have preempted regulation requiring it to take costlier or possibly less effective steps. The organization might try to bring its stakeholders’ expectations of corporate behavior and performance closer to its own perceptions of its behavior and performance. The organizationcouldenhance itsstakeholdercommunicationandeducationaleffortsaboutits activitiesandpoliciesin the public arena. This is frequently done today using social media and other web-based communication channels. The organizationmaycontestthe issue inthe public opinion arena. This could be done through lobbying government decision makers, using the court system and legal challenges, applying grassroots pressure to the issue, or through advocacy advertisements and editorials. The organizationcouldignore the issue and hope it goes away or hope that time might resolve the matter in its favor.
- 8. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 8 of 9 Answeringthesequestions requires taking the list of issues generated within the identification phase and placingtheminthe cellsof a matrix boundedbythe selectionof twovariables.Amongthe variables mostfrequentlyusedare probability (the likelihoodthatthe issue will occur) and impact(the severity of the possible effectof the issue). These are oftencombinedintoa3 × 3 matrix,withthe variablesranging from high to medium to low, resulting in nine cells, each of which suggests a different priority for subsequent action on behalf of the company. There are some key lessons you need to note when utilizing issue analysis: Althoughissuesgenerallytendtoevolveovera fairly predictable pattern or life cycle, the time overwhichany individual issue developscanvaryenormously;sometimesitcandevelopindays or weeks, sometimes in years or even over decades Many issueswill gettransformedastheyevolve.There are many twists and turns among issues and stakeholders in the PP-making process that can shift the expected trajectory of an issue. This makes planning and the consideration of different scenarios (see Chapter 10) paramount Uncertainty invariably surrounds which issues will actually make it onto the PP arena. Some issuesare bestresolvedthroughproactive measures, while some may be safely ignored in the decision-making process. Complementary Methods Competitive Simulations/WarGaming Forecasting Macro-Environmental (STEEP/PEST) analysis Nine Forces(Industry) analysis Regulatoryanalysis Stakeholderanalysis SWOT analysis Trendanalysis Additional Resources See chapter 8 (pg. 127-146) on Issue Analysis in the (2013) book Analysis without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions, 2nd Ed., by Babette E. Bensoussan and Craig S. Fleisher, Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press. Businessand CompetitiveAnalysis:EffectiveApplication of New and Classic Methods by Craig S. Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan, 2007, Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press. Strategicand CompetitiveAnalysis:Methodsand TechniquesforAnalyzing BusinessCompetition byCraig S. Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan, 2003, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
- 9. Issue Analysis All Rights Reserved to Aurora WDC Page 9 of 9 Chase,W.H. (1984). Issuemanagement:Originsof thefuture. StamfordCT:Issue ActionPublishers. - See more at: http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/issues-management/#sthash.cdo8m0og.dpuf Heath, R.L. (2002). Issues management: Its past, present and future. Journal of Public Affairs,2(2), 209- 214. - See more at: http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/issues-management/#sthash.cdo8m0og.dpuf Heath,R. L. (1997). Strategicissues management:Organizations and public policy challenges. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.