Phase III – AnalysesThe Analyses ph

Phase III – Analyses
The Analyses phase contains two critical and distinct elements—the environmental analysis and the needs/gap analysis. These two individual analyses bracket the Mission phase that follows, effectively causing the two phases to run concurrently. Mintzberg describes strategy as a pattern that reflects the dynamics of the environment (1994). It is this phase that enables the planning process to assess the environment.

The environmental analysis precedes the Mission phase and gives it shape, aligning services and activities with changed and changing environmental conditions. At the core of the environmental scan is the SWOTs analysis (SWOTs is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). This is a critical assessment of the seven areas of internal strengths and weaknesses of the institution and seven areas of opportunities and threats existing in the external environment (Figure 3). Today’s dynamic market environment makes it essential to understand planning factors driven by the external environment and the institution’s ability to muster an internal response.

Over 2,000 years ago Sun Tzu advised “know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant of both your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril” (Griffith, 1971, p. 84). While there is no pure enemy in the context of planning for distance learning, there are competitors who create what Ansoff refers to as “a vector of potentially antagonistic objectives” (1988, p. 23). In a true strategic plan the university will know itself and its competition. (In addition to the factors addressed in the SWOTs section of this model, Howell, Williams, and Lindsay (2003) and Gallagher (2002) provide excellent ideas on factors to scan.)
The Needs/Gap analysis assesses the differential between the current status and the stated goals. An effective planning effort thoroughly identifies the goals the institution is seeking to achieve, its current capability to achieve those goals, and, most importantly, any gaps that exist between the two. This analysis defines the direction that the strategy must lead the institution to launch an effective distance learning initiative. Needs/Gap analysis follows the Mission phase of the model. This sequence allows it to be based on a comparison of the knowledge derived from the SWOTs analysis and the Mission phase of the model—a comparison of the environment and the organizational vision.