Several characteristics of strategic scanning processes emerge from the findings of the study. The findings indicate that CEOs use external information sources with much higher frequency than internal information sources, and that they do not delegate their strategic information acquisition activity to subordinates. The findings also indicate that they use personal sources with higher frequency than impersonal sources. This suggests that, in terms of strategic attention, their information system is very personal and somewhat decoupled from the organizational information system.
Two generic types of strategic information have been identified, one of which can change the frame of reference through which the CEO interprets information, implying that second-order learning is a feature of the strategic scanning process.
The results have also shown that the CEOs are very systematic scanners when it comes to strategic information, and they have a limited number of sources which they constantly consult.
The above results, in combination, suggest that a computer-based information system to support and enhance the CEOs' strategic scanning would probably have to be a customized personal system which is very loosely coupled to the organizational information system. The CEOs' tendency to use a limited set of sources would somewhat reduce the complexity of the design. Given that most personal strategic information is oral, and consequently mostly gossip and tidbits, it points to the CEO being the input intermediary. Finally, the system must be adaptive enough to accommodate the CEO's constantly changing frame of reference.
All the above point in the direction of a "tickler file" system which has some very simple input methods, but has sophisticated classification and manipulation capabilities with qualitative verbal data. The emergence of idea outlining software [31, pioneered by the "Think Tank" software system, is a step in that direction. These programs allow the user to record their creative ideas, provide editing, organizing, and outlining facilities to later rearrange those thoughts into topics, and give each topic a separate heading or subheading, A further step would be to incorporate some learning features into the program such that it would adapt to changing frames of reference.
Given the absence of a tight coupling requirement between a strategic scanning system and the organizational system, and given that the personal database will probably not be very large, portable lap computers may very well be an appropriate medium for such applications. The absence of direct coupling to the organizational information system will also mitigate many privacy problems.
Such personal strategic scanning systems could also be used as a front end device to help individual top managers prepare and organize for strategic planning group sessions where they need to share their views about trends and events in the environment. Futures research techniques, based on environmental scanning such as QUEST [22], and used at the corporate level to help top managers quickly focus upon strategic issues, are based on the assumption that each member of the top management team of an organization already has a view of the changing environment. Again, a personal strategic scanning system might aid the development of that view.