Environmental Scan

Each person has a different idea of what it means to be successful. After talking to my family and some friends, I know that I have several strengths and weaknesses. I know that I will face some opportunities and threats. Also, I know that I will have competitors. In this competitive business world, understanding what is truly valuable to me is a major step towards achieving my goal. My strengths are my languages, technology skills, education, work ethic and the ability to follow directions. My weaknesses are communication skill, lack of U.S culture and working experience. Increasing job demand, globalization and accountant role expanding are three major opportunities in accounting field. Information technology, uncertainty of recession and starting salary are 3 major threats to my financial success. I will face all the accounting major competitors from the Midwest.

My goal is the final destination of my financial success. It is to be able to pay bills without worry, be free of debt, have enough money for my kids to go to colleges and help other people with my financial resources.

As a KU graduated student, I will compete with all the accounting graduated students from the Midwest for the next 20 or 30 years. KU business school has the best reputation in the Midwest, so I have a better educational advantage over my competitors. In this case, I can get a promotion easily.

Compared to my competitors, my strengths are my languages, technology skills, education, work ethic and the ability to follow directions. The first strength that I am aware of is I speak three different languages. Also, I have decent technology skills. I have a great educational background from KU. Work ethic is another one of my personal strengths that I am aware of. Also, I have the ability to follow directions without being reminded to repeat that same task. Based on VRIO framework, speaking different languages is definitely valuable for the international market now. It is rare that people can speak different language, especially Asian languages. It is difficult to imitate the languages skills that I have. In any organizations now, they required more and more people to learn different languages. Technology skills are valuable assets to me and it’s rare to have both accounting and technology skills at the same time. It’s also difficult to imitate and technology becomes more and more important for companies. If I compete with graduated students from the Midwest, my education background is very valuable to me and I certainly have the advantage over my competitors. It is difficult to imitate my education background and every organization needs people who have good education. My work ethic is valuable to me and it’s rare that people have a great work ethic. It’s hard to imitate because it’s something you born with. My work ethic can help me to get a promotion in any firms. The ability to follow directions is a valuable asset to me and not a lot of people have that. It’s hard to imitate and it also can help me to get promotions in any organizations. By identifying my personal strengths, I can become successful in accomplish my goal.

We need to be able to recognize not only our strengths, but also more importantly, our weaknesses. Compared to my competitors, my weaknesses are communication skills, lacking U.S culture and working experiences. Sometimes, I have trouble to communicate with other effectively because of my English skills. I lacked the knowledge of American culture compared to my competitors because I was born and raised in China. Lacked of working experiences is another weakness that I am aware of, I am focus more on school, and I only had a one job in the past.

For me, the opportunities are clear. Increasing job demand, globalization and accountant role expanding are three major opportunities in accounting field. First, accounting is clearly one of the hottest markets. Experts predicted that on-campus hiring in 2007 was up 45% from two years earlier and is expected to grow 20% this year. (Barbara) According to WSJ, the Big Four accounting firms will hire more interns in the next five years than in the 2007. (Dave) Also, in the last three months of 2007, the number of people working as accountants rose 2.4%, nearly five times the rate of increase in jobs market. I would say this opportunity has an 80% probability will happen and has a significant level of 5 for my life, for a total of 4.0 score. These facts will have huge impacts on me because the accountant is the starting line for me to accomplish my goal.

Second, globalization is a big environmental force for us. Globalization opened a lot of opportunities between countries and countries. Due to globalization, there are tons of business opportunities for foreign enterprises. Clive Saunderson, a Beijing-based Ernst & Young partner, said “China is thought to have about 130,000 qualified accountants, less than half the estimated 300,000 it needs, and there still will be a shortage of accountants for the next 10 years” (Acct.Age). For me, I will have working opportunities in the next 10 years. I would say globalization has a 70% probability will happen and has a significant level of 5 for my life, for a total of 3.5 score.

Third, the role of accounting is expanding. Accountant is not only asked to count numbers, but also required to offer expertise on management, information technology, revenue enhancement and etc. This change gives me more job opportunities. I can use my accounting knowledge to perform tasks on different fields. It’s good to know there is an 80% probability that this change will occur in the next few year. I will prepare myself for this new opportunity to accomplish my goal. I would say this opportunity has a 70% probability will happen and has a significant level of 5 for my life, for a total of 3.5 score.

Information technology, uncertainty of recession and starting salary are three major threats to my financial success. First, the financial technology is expanding. A lot of accounting calculations are done by the computer. People argued that computer