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PESTLE Analysis

Work through all six external factors with prompts for each, and rate impact and likelihood as you go.

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Start from a real example

Pick one and change it to fit. Everything stays on this device. Nothing is uploaded.

Political

0

Government, policy, stability, trade. What the state might do.

    Economic

    0

    Growth, rates, inflation, currency, employment. The weather your customers buy in.

      Social

      0

      Demographics, attitudes, habits. Who people are and what they now expect.

        Technological

        0

        What has become possible, cheap or obsolete since you last looked.

          Legal

          0

          Rules already on the books, as distinct from politics, which is what might yet be written.

            Environmental

            0

            Climate, resources, waste, and the reporting now attached to them.

              0 points written, 0 of them placed across 6 boxes.

              What this canvas is telling you

              • Nothing written down yet. Start with whatever you already know and sort it afterwards.

              Frequently asked questions

              The questions people actually ask about this document.

              What is a PESTLE analysis?
              Six categories of force outside your organisation: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. You go through them one at a time and write down what is changing in each. The categories are not profound. What they do is stop you listing six versions of the thing you were already worried about, which is what an unstructured scan of the environment always produces.
              How do I know which factors belong in it?
              Two tests. Could it change the business, and is it genuinely outside your control. Something you can fix on Monday is not a PESTLE factor, it is a task. Something that cannot change anything, however interesting, is background reading. Most first attempts fail the second test more often than the first.
              Where is the line between social and economic?
              Economic is about money and capacity: what people can afford, what things cost, what the rates are. Social is about preference and habit: what people want and expect, and who they are. A falling disposable income is economic. A generation that will not phone anyone is social. The same change often shows up in both, and that is fine; the categories exist to prompt you, not to be defended.
              How far ahead should it look?
              As far as your slowest decision. If you are signing a five-year lease, five years. If you are planning next quarter's campaign, a PESTLE is probably the wrong tool, because almost nothing in these six categories moves that fast. Matching the horizon to the decision is what keeps it from being an essay.
              We have a list of factors. What do we do with it?
              Mark each one with how likely it is and how much it would matter, and keep the handful that score high on both. Those are the ones that belong in a risk register with an owner, or in the opportunities and threats of a SWOT. A PESTLE that ends as a list is a reading exercise; a PESTLE that ends as four decisions is analysis.
              How is this different from the outer half of a SWOT?
              It is the same half, done properly. A SWOT gives you two boxes for everything outside the organisation, which is where most of them get thin. A PESTLE gives that same territory six prompts and asks you to look at each. Most teams that use both run the PESTLE first and pour the findings into the SWOT's opportunities and threats.

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