The longer, broader view. Take a look at SWOT’s neglected sibling.

PEST* analysis is the somewhat neglected sibling of SWOT analysis, which is a shame because it is an excellent tool for analyzing various macro forces that critically impact a businesses. While SWOT is good for targeting near-term priorities, PEST looks longer, broader view. As such, PEST is a great approach for identifying new ideas, opportunities and interesting topics for discussion.

In a sales and consulting environment, PEST can be applied to identify outlying topics that broaden a customer or client’s thinking and change their perception of the person they are dealing with. The person becomes more of a business consultant, more than a product or service provider.

The letters of PEST represent Political, Economic, Social and Technological. Over the years, marketers and business consultants have refined and re-shaped PEST to resulting in multiple variants such as DESTEP, PESTEL and STEEPLE. Different derivatives of the model may be more suited to different industries (hospitality versus software say) and scenarios (new business business unit or new product).

Here we look in more depth at our preferred variation: STEEPLE.

Social

Population demographics
Cultural trends
Health
Religion

Technological

Automation
Artificial intelligence
Research & development

Environmental

Climate change
Weather seasonality
Pollution

Economic

Inflation
Employment
Interest rates

Political

Stability
Regulations
Taxation

Legal

Consumer protection
Labor laws
Safety standards

Ethical

Wage equality
Safe working
Social responsibility
Community relations

It takes just a few minutes to scroll through each of the 7 lenses above, and come up with a question for each. Applying STEEPLE to a hotel business for example might result in the following questions:

S
How will increased concern over health and cleanliness impact our cleaning costs and demand for shared leisure facilities?

T
How can we better leverage mobile technology in our hotel cars to improve the customer experience?

E
With a fall in overseas visitors, what should we be doing to attract more domestic customers?

E
What could we do to reduce the amount of water we use and become more water independent?

P
How would an increase of 1% in sales tax / VAT impact our customers and our business?

L
How do we ensure that our sub-contractors comply with labor laws?

E
What are our policies and processes for ensuring wage equality between sexes?

Note that in the above example it could be argued that the question under Political relating to taxation could be argued to be an Economic question. It doesn’t matter! The key is to use the framework to broaden your thinking and come up with interesting questions and topics for discussion.

Taking these questions to your clients and customers helps them think about topics that they may not have considered and positions you as someone who a) cares about the future of their business and b) thinks broadly and commercially – traits that are highly valued in business.

See below for an expanded list of considerations under each heading: