Effects of Environmental Scanning and Structural Analysis Systems on Long-Term Strategic Planning: Syrian Wheat Production as a Case Study

Abstract

Environmental scanning is a milestone at the start of futures studies and strategic planning process. It must be done collectively and as participatory as possible to explore, create, and test both possible and desirable futures to capture opportunities of the futures images, trying to optimize it, and at the same time to avoid or reduce the risks of future threats. Internal analysis focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, while external analysis focuses on the threats and opportunities that may suddenly happen in the future. These two types of analysis provide an inventory of all variables / factors or events / drivers, internal and external that characterizes the system. But this is not enough for long-term strategic planning, the issue is not really planning, but rather the manner in which planning is executed. So advanced analysis should be done to study the direct and indirect relations among these trends, issues, variables / factors. As the vector of key variables is extracted with relations (influence, dependency) in mind, The impact of each of these key variables on each other must be taken into account relative to the system under study; CIA (Cross-Impact-Analysis) method is used to study such impacts. Future studies and forecasting methods need to benefit from this analysis to focus on the effects of these unprecedented future events. This paper introduces such work by integrating the results of strategic planning tools with futures studies methods and this could be essential for advanced analysis.