Subject guides: Marketing: PESTLE Analysis

What is PESTLE?

A PESTLE analysis is a tool used to gain a macro picture of an industry environment. PESTLE stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors.

It allows a company to form an impression of the factors that might impact a new business or industry. Some factors will be more important to different types of businesses, and a PESTLE analysis will help identity risk factors for the SWOT analysis.

PESTLE Factors

Political factors relate to government controls and influences over economy or industry. Government factors may be legislation or economic policies. The political environment can affect an industry through a range of factors, including:

· Trade tariffs Vector image courthouse

· Conflicts

· Taxation

· Fiscal policies

To find information on a city or country’s political environment, investigate the following sources.

Business Source Ultimate
Access Country Reports, the Political Risk Yearbook, and Marketline Country PESTLE reports. Business Source Ultimate aggregates a selection of business & economics journals, indexes and abstracts. Includes many full text scholarly journals. Provides company profiles for the world's 5,000 largest companies.

Factiva.com (mid-1980s - present)
Newspapers, company information, pictures and media transcripts from Australian and overseas media sources.For Australian news sources, the Fairfax publications archive includes The Sydney Morning Herald 1986+, Australian Financial Review 1987+, BRW 1989+, and the News Limited archive includes The Australian 1996+.

Australian Financial Review via Factiva has a 72-hour embargo on daily articles.

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PAIS: Public Affairs Information Service
References to works in all subject areas which are relevant to contemporary social & political, economic & business issues, social sciences and public policy.
Parliament of Australia
Freely available Australian parliamentary documents including debates (Hansard), media releases, legislation, bills, second readings, explanatory memorandum, senate and house committee transcripts, background papers and research notes. The parliamentary website also includes links to Committee websites and Parliamentary papers index.
Parliament of New South Wales
Freely available New South Wales parliamentary documents including debates (Hansard), media releases, legislation, bills, second readings & explanatory memorandum, senate and house committee transcripts, background papers and research papers.

Looking for international political information? Try parliamentary websites.

Economic factors a have direct impact on a company’s long-term prospects in a market. The economic environment may affect how a company prices their products or influence the supply and demand model. Environmental factors can include: Vector image rising bar graph

· Inflation rate

· Disposable income

· Unemployment rate

· Interest rates

· Foreign exchange rates

· Economic growth patterns

To find information on a city or country’s economic environment, investigate the following sources.

Business Source Ultimate via Ebsco
Aggregation of business & economics journals, indexes and abstracts. Includes many full text scholarly journals. Provides company profiles for the world's 5,000 largest companies.
ABI/Inform Complete
International business/management database. Good for all topics including industry, economics, accounting & finance, marketing, human resources, organisational behaviour, and coaching psychology.
Passport
Passport provides market intelligence on industries, consumers and countries. The Economies tab at the top of the Passport homepage provides background information on each country e.g. ease of doing business, government stability etc.
ACCC
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and contains information on fair trading, business rights and responsibilities and industry monitoring.
The Treasury
The Treasury is the Australian Government’s website on financial policy and includes economic and fiscal outlook documents, the budget and other information on Australia’s economy.
ASIC: Australian Securities and Investment Commission
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission is an independent government body that acts as a corporate regulator. It provides information about companies and organisations and finance news.
Productivity Commission
The Productivity Commission is the Australian Government’s principal review and advisory body on microeconomic policy and regulation. It provides information on current ongoing enquiries, economic news and regulatory reviews.
OECD iLibrary
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 36 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. The OECD iLibrary provides economic information for all member countries, as well as reports, documents and statistical data.

Social factors, such as demographics and culture can impact the industry environment by influencing peak buying periods, purchasing habits, and lifestyle choices. Society is important as people’s culture and lifestyle can influence when, where and how they are likely to engage with products and services. Social factors can include:

· Religion and ethics Social network

· Consumer buying patterns

· Demographics

· Health

· Opinions and attitudes

· Media

· Brand preferences

· Education

To find information on the social and cultural factors in a city or country, investigate the following resources.

Factiva
Factiva provides access to an extensive archive of news articles, broadcasts, industry publications and news sites. Check Factiva for news and publications relating to your industry.

Statista
Access statistics and reports on consumer markets, countries, industries, companies, brands, and trends worldwide. Check out Statista’s training hub for online training sessions, where you’ll be provided with tips on how to find relevant data quickly and easily.

Please note: Content from the Company DB module is accessible until 31 December 2024.

Productivity Comission
The Productivity Commission is the Australian Government’s principal review and advisory body on microeconomic policy and regulation. It provides information on current ongoing enquiries, economic news and regulatory reviews.
Consumer Information Guide
The Library's Consumer Information Subject Guide carries a huge variety of sources to help identify consumers, consumer preferences, and research into particular demographics.
APA-FT: Australian Public Affairs Full Text via Informit Online (1978 - present)
The place to start for coverage of Australia's political, economic, social and cultural affairs. Broad-ranging coverage also includes Australian humanities and social sciences, current affairs, and law.
ABS – Australian Bureau of Statistics
The Australian Bureau of Statistics website gives access to all of Australia’s census and demographic data, as well as related news releases.

Technological factors may have a direct or an indirect influence on an industry. While some industries will be more affected by technology than others, innovations in technology may affect the market and consumer choices and buying power. Technological factors can include:

· Automation

· Technological development Wifi bars

· Patents

· Licensing

· Communication

· Information technology

· Research and Development

· Technological awareness

To find information on the technological factors in a city or country, investigate the following resources.

Statista
Access statistics and reports on consumer markets, countries, industries, companies, brands, and trends worldwide. Check out Statista’s training hub for online training sessions, where you’ll be provided with tips on how to find relevant data quickly and easily.

Please note: Content from the Company DB module is accessible until 31 December 2024.

Business Source Ultimate
Aggregation of business & economics journals, indexes and abstracts. Includes many full text scholarly journals. Carries industry reports and academic research in technology-related fields such as ICT and communications.
Scopus
Scopus is a large multidisciplinary database covering published material in the humanities and sciences. Use keyword searches for academic research looking at specific technologies, or particular industries.

Factiva.com (mid-1980s - present)
Newspapers, company information, pictures and media transcripts from Australian and overseas media sources.For Australian news sources, the Fairfax publications archive includes The Sydney Morning Herald 1986+, Australian Financial Review 1987+, BRW 1989+, and the News Limited archive includes The Australian 1996+.

Australian Financial Review via Factiva has a 72-hour embargo on daily articles.

Library guides to Factiva | Factiva Libguide | Search for specific publications | Searching with accented characters | Login error message
Downloading large amounts of data is not permitted

Legal factors may affect both the internal and external environment of a company. The legal and regulatory environment can affect the policies and procedures of an industry, and can control employment, safety and regulations. Legal factors can include:

· Employment laws Vector image scales

· Consumer protection

· Industry specific regulations

· Regulatory bodies

· Environmental regulations

To find information on the legal factors in a city or country, investigate the following resources.

AustLII
Free access to Australasian legal materials, including legislation, decisions of courts and tribunals, and treaties. Articles from law journals and law reform commission reports are among its secondary materials.
WorldLII
Provides free access to primary and some secondary legal materials from overseas jurisdictions. Includes International law databases.
AGIS Plus Text: Attorney General's Information Service via Informit Online (1975 - present)
Covering all aspects of Australian law, and an authoritative collection for primary legal research in comparative and Commonwealth law. Includes articles, reports, and books from Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region, plus selected material from the United Kingdom, U.S. and Canada starting from 1999.
ACCC
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and contains information on fair trading, business rights and responsibilities and industry monitoring.

Environmental factors include all those relating to the physical environment and to general environmental protection requirements. While the environment is more important to some industries, such as tourism, agriculture or food production, these factors may influence a range of different industries and are worth being aware of. Environmental factors include:

· Climate recycling symbol

· Geographical location

· Stakeholder and consumer values

· Environmental offsets

· Weather

· Global climate change

To find information on the environmental factors in a city or country, investigate the following resources.

Environment Complete via Ebsco
Covers all areas of environmental research and technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more. Coverage starts in the 1940s.
Web of Science Core Collections
This portal hosts Web of Science, Current Contents Connect, BIOSIS Previews, CAB Abstracts, MEDLINE, and via the Additional Resources tab, Journal Citation Reports. Its CrossSearch feature enables a "quick overview" search of these databases and also searches Agricola and Pubmed.
MEDGE: Management and Environment Information via Informit Online (1985 - 2006)
Indexed articles on management issues for business and government.

Why do a PESTLE Analysis?

A PESTLE analysis allows a strategic and systematic evaluation of a business's prospects, risks and opportunities in a new environment.

While a SWOT analysis concentrates on a company's internal processes, PESTLE provides information on external factors.

PESTLE can be used for large and small scale projects.

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