PESTLE Analysis Template

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Conduct a PESTLE analysis

2.6 Conduct a PESTLE analysis.

Break participants into teams and divide the

categories amongst them: Examine political factors Examine economic factors
such as taxes, such as interest rates,

Economic
Step 2.6.1: Political trends

Political
environmental regulations, inflation rate, exchange
Step 2.6.2: Economic trends and zoning restrictions. rates, the financial and
Step 2.6.3: Social trends stock markets, and the job
market.
Step 2.6.4: Technological trends
Step 2.6.5: Legal trends Examine social factors Examine technological

Technological
such as gender, race, age, factors such as servers,
Step 2.6.6: Environmental trends income, disabilities, computers, networks,

Social
• Have each group identify relevant trends under educational attainment, software, database
employment status, and technologies, wireless
their respective categories. You must relate
religion. capabilities, and availability
each trend back to the business by of Software as a Service.
considering:
o How does this affect my business? Examine legal factors such Examine environmental

Environment
as trade laws, labor laws, factors such as green
o Why do we care? environmental laws, and initiatives, ethical issues,
Legal

al
• Use the prompt questions on the next few privacy laws. weather patterns, and
slides to help the brainstorming process. pollution.
• Have each team present its list and have
remaining teams give feedback and additional
suggestions.

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Review these questions to help you conduct a PESTLE analysis
For each prompt below, always try to answer the question: how does this affect my business?
• Will a change in government (at any level) affect your • How are your costs changing (moving off-shore,
organization? fluctuations in markets, etc.)?

Economic
Political

• Do inter-government or trade relations affect you? • Do currency fluctuations have an effect on your business?
• Are there shareholder needs or demands that must be • Can you attract and pay for top-quality talent (e.g.
considered? desirable location, reasonable cost of living, changes to
insurance requirements)?

• What are the demographics of your customers and/or • Do you require constant technology upgrades (faster
employees? network, new hardware, etc.)?
• What are the attitudes of your customers and/or staff (do • What is the appetite for innovation within your

Technological
they require social media, collaboration, transparency of industry/business?
costs, etc.)?
Social

• Are there demands for increasing data storage, quality, BI,

• What is the general lifecycle of an employee (i.e. is there etc.?
high turnover)?
• Are you looking at cloud technologies?
• Is there a market of qualified staff?
• What is the stance on bring your own device?
• Is your business seasonal?
• Are you required to do a significant amount of
development work in-house?
• Are there changes to trade laws? • Is there a push towards being environmentally friendly?

Environmental
• Are there changes to regulatory requirements, e.g. data • Does the weather have any effect on your business
storage policies or privacy policies? (hurricanes, flooding, etc.)?
Legal

• Are there union factors that must be considered?

See next slides for detailed prompts for: Government, Health, and Education.

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PESTLE considerations for government clients
For each prompt below, always try to answer the question: how does this affect my business?
• Has there been a recent push for more community • Has there been a recent change in government funding
involvement in the decision-making process? such as a financial stimulus, federal/provincial or
state/municipal initiatives, etc.
• Have government operations (municipal, provincial/state,

Economic
Political

federal) become more consolidated or decentralized? • Have there been recent changes in funding sources?
• Has there been a change in the geographical coverage of • Has your organization been recently affected or will be
the organization? affected by changes in the market for locally produced
goods or services, such as natural resources?

• Has there been a change in the use of services provided • Is there any physical infrastructure that needs to be
to citizens? modernized within your geographical location?
• Are there any demographical trends that are particularly • How have your citizens’ technology access expectations

Technological
prevalent in your geographical area? Have there been changed?
aging groups which will need additional services to support
Social

• Are there any social media trends to consider that would

them?
improve your communication with constituents?
• Has there been or will there be changes to the total
• How are you currently storing secure constituent data? Will
number of citizens?
the security need to be improved?

• Have there been recent changes in government reporting • Are there any government mandates to become more

Environmental
and transparency regulations? environmentally sustainable?
• Do environmental (weather) condition variabilities impact
Legal

your municipality?

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Sample PESTLE for government Example

• Local citizens have more visibility into how the municipality • The local economy has been slumping, which means that
is spending money. We need to ask their input before, not we are going to be more likely to source locally or hire
only after, creating technology solutions. talent locally.

Economic
Political

• The IT function of our municipality has joined with another • The local technology industry has been rising recently. We
municipality. We can use this to secure volume discounts should consider a program to connect with local experts.
from vendors and provide cross-municipality solutions.
• A newly elected municipal government ran on a platform of
cost cutting, which means that our capital expenditures are
unlikely to increase next year.
• We have seen a spike in the number of citizens leaving • Citizens want to be connected everywhere they go – we
the municipality in the last two years. Some of our must consider increasing free or paid network access.
infrastructure needs to be scaled down to avoid
• More and more of the staff’s work is being done on the go,

Technological
unnecessary overhead costs.
so we need to consider investing in collaboration solutions.
• We are going to experience a temporary increase in
Social

visitors due to a month-long event. We need to offer

mobility services to make sure that visitors can navigate
and use their devices in designated locations.

• Recent regulations dictate that the spending data for our • Our municipality has recently been allocated budgetary

Environmental
staff must be available and audited twice a year. We must considerations for green initiatives. We can use some of
ensure the availability and the quality of the data. that money if we replace some of our infrastructure with
Legal

more energy-efficient technology.

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PESTLE considerations for the healthcare industry
For each prompt below, always try to answer the question: how does this affect my business?
• Will a change in government affect your funding model? • Are there changes to insurance structures (e.g. first-dollar
healthcare)?
• Do medical policies affect your patient load (new drugs,

Economic
approved trials, etc.)? • Are people changing the way they use and pay for
Political

healthcare (i.e. the need for printed records)?

• What is the trend in your costs (salary requirements,
usage due to aging population, funding changes, etc.)?

• Patients: demographics (e.g. older thus using services • Is telehealth affecting you?
more often), feelings towards technology, attitude towards
• What is happening with your health-data/electronic medical
health records/privacy, medical tourism, social media?
records (security, storage, structure, etc.)?

Technological
• Physicians: attitude towards work (turnover), availability
(staffing), demands for technology (collaboration, BYOD,
Social

etc.)?

• Are there increased regulations with respect to data • Environment: are there paper records that must be

Environmental
privacy and/or auditability? transferred, are there sustainable hospitals?
• Are there changes to specific health-related regulations • Is your facility going LEAN?
Legal

(Affordable Care Act, HIPAA, etc.)?

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Sample PESTLE for healthcare Example

• Affordable Care organizations require an expansion of • Healthcare costs are rising due to an increase in patients
business intelligence and interface capabilities. (aging population), changes to insurance structures

Economic
(deductible changes affect demand for healthcare), and a
Political

• Public funding model requires data to be easily audited

reduction in fees from services such as printed records –
(well structured, high quality).
means that IT needs to optimize (do more with less).
• Physician shortages and a high cost of living lead to an
increase in physician salaries (less funding to IT out of
strained budgets).
• Increased privacy concerns – people are more concerned • Telehealth will require an expansion of audio-visual
about what is happening with their health information. We capabilities, network, services, and clinical access.
need effort to show that systems are secure. Need to
• Data traffic is increasing – increase storage, speed, and

Technological
track/catalog private information better.
security; genetic sequences will be coming online soon,
• Patients are better educated/informed, which means which will add to the data load.
Social

greater expectations around cost and quality (cost

• EMR requires maintenance in greater frequencies.
accounting system + website development).
• Physicians have a desire for BYOD and mobile
• “Silver Tsunami”: an aging population with higher severity
technologies that require intense risk analysis.
illnesses, requiring more ICU beds, more referrals, and
requiring more doctors and staff (IT support for building
expansion).

• Increasing regulatory control around electronic medical • Increasing pressure to retire physical document

Environmental
records means that data quality and data security are management. Retirement of paper records means an
paramount. increase in new inputs such as voice and text.
Legal

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PESTLE considerations for education clients
For each prompt below, always try to answer the question: how does this affect my business?
• Have there been changes in relation to professor or • Has there been a change in the type and level of funding
teacher unions? provided by municipal, provincial/state, or federal
governments?
• Have there been recent changes in mandated curriculums

Economic
Political

and their implementation? • How is the local economy performing? Will that impact the
volume of students or funding?
• Have there been any changes to immigration relations
which could impact the student or teacher population? • Are there certain industry sectors performing better or
worse? How will that impact student demand for services?

• Has there been a push towards providing specific training • Does the “there’s an app for that” trend impact the
to fill unemployment gaps? organization?
• Have there been changes in how students interact with the • Has there been an increase in demand for “self-serve”

Technological
organization? New devices or expectations for solutions?
connectivity?
Social

• Is the integration of collaboration and media tools

• How is the organization adapting to telecommuting and impacting the organization?
online learning?
• Have there been demographic trends that directly impact
the organization’s student population?

• Have there been changes to education-related • Is your organization thinking of adopting more energy-

Environmental
regulations? efficient technology?
Legal

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Sample PESTLE for education Example

• The state government has recently signed a contract with • There has been an increase in the number of private fund
a list of preferred vendors. To take advantage of cost providers for our university, along with an increased
savings, we should consider switching from some of our demand for transparency. Our data gathering and analysis

Economic
Political

current vendors. tools need to help us retain funds and attract more
contributors.
• A new manufacturing plant has opened up in our city, and
many students now need specialized training. We must
provide them with the technology they need to learn these
skills.
• There has been a recent surge in demand for computer • Students are becoming less patient when dealing with
programming courses, so we have to plan for the technology solutions, and will often try to solve issues by
additional application maintenance required for the themselves. We have to update our help desk solutions to

Technological
mandated software. include do-it-yourself solutions to minimize interactions.
• Students now expect to be connected everywhere while • Recent improvements to the level of security of cloud
Social

on campus. We have to increase the number of end-points providers has made it more appealing to host private data
supported on our network across all buildings. externally.
• There has been an increase in the number of students • BYOD – students and teachers will continue connecting
taking online courses. We have to install and support their devices, and we must support them.
collaboration applications, as well as online teaching tools.

• There have been changes in security regulations for • We have been trying to reduce our ecological footprint

Environmental
student data. Our procedures now have to include more based on the mandate of the board of governors. We need
stringent enforcement of cybersecurity. to continue to look to externally hosted solutions to
Legal

decrease the number of physical assets on campus.

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PESTLE Analysis Template

Economic
Political

Technological
Social

Environmental
Legal

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