environmental scan assignment henny maruapula s215140516

Research Project 1

2015

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN ASSIGNMENT COPORATE COMMUNICATIONS (LMC 428) BY MARUAPULA, HENNY (MR) (S215140516)

Research Project 1 LMC 428 by Henny Maruapula, (215140516) 1 | P a g e

I understand that plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s words or ideas as my

own. These ideas or words can come from a classmate, an ex-student, encyclopedia, book,

journal, magazine, newspaper, the internet, a pamphlet, etc.

I have not plagiarized in this assignment.

I understand that if I am found guilty to have plagiarized, intentionally or unintentionally, I

have to face disciplinary action.

Signed:

Date: May 11th 2015


Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ........................................................................... 3

2. OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................... 4

3. SCOPE ............................................................................................................................. 4

4. LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................... 5

5. METHODOLOGY.............................................................................................................. 7

6. QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS ............................................................................. 8

7. POPULATION AND SAMPLE ........................................................................................ 10

7.1 Types of Samples ............................................................................................ 10

8. FINDINGS ....................................................................................................................... 12

9. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 15

10. RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................. 15

11. REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 16


1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The assignment brief was to do an environmental scanning of any particular organization

and this involved scanning and monitoring. The main type of environmental scanning for this

assignment was cyber-scanning. From here I had to identify and predict potential problem

issues as well as trends.

I decided to choose an organization in the banking sector, based in Botswana. First National

Bank of Botswana (FNBB) with its tagline ‘How can we help you?’ was registered in 1991

and is a wholly owned subsidiary of First National Bank Holdings (Botswana). FNBB became

a listed entity of the Botswana Stock Exchange in 1993.

In 2001, First National Bank Botswana became the largest company on the Botswana Stock

Exchange by virtue of its capitalization. FNBB is also the most profitable Bank in Botswana,

boosting the most differentiated balance sheet which enables it to achieve and maintain

profit margins in all economic conditions and climaxes. With its Vision which reads ‘The

Bank of choice delivering innovative solutions and a superior customer experience’ and

owing very much to its name, First National Bank of Botswana has been a pioneer in

introducing first’s in innovative banking products and these include

i. First to introduce a Botswana Pula based credit card

ii. First to provide internet banking

iii. First to bring inContact

iv. First bank in Botswana to establish a charitable Foundation

v. First to introduce Cellphone Banking

vi. First to introduce Mobile Automatic Teller Machine

vii. First to introduce a one stop payment solution: FirstPay Portal.

In terms of visibility, to date, FNBB has three (3) kiosks located at Lobatse, Gaborone and

Francistown. These kiosks offer services such as; account opening, general enquiries, loan

applications, credit card applications, internet and cell phone registration and cheque

deposits. Customers now enjoy extended banking hours at the same convenience as the

operating hours of the retailer. In the ATM front, the Bank operates a network of 130 ATMs

and over 4,000 point of sale devices throughout Botswana. This therefore gave me the

impetus and platform to make First National Bank of Botswana my chose in this

environmental scanning project because is a relatively large and prominent enough to be

discussed and analysed.

First National Bank of Botswana mainly executes its Corporate Social Responsibility

initiatives through the FNBB Foundation which is one of the biggest corporate donors and a

leader in Corporate Social Investment not only in the financial services sector but also in


Botswana. The FNBB Foundation which was established in 2001, has invested more than

P29 million in various social responsibility projects, enriching and uplifting the lives of many

people in need across Botswana.

With its segments and sectors, FNBB has divided its business into Consumer, Wholesale

and Public Sector in order to give further focus and attention to clients' unique needs in the

different areas. Each unique segment has its own team and is accountable for the client

relationships thus delivering a unique value proposition to its clients and keeping up with its

tagline of ‘How can we help you?’

This report has been written because a Communications Practitioner it is imperative that we

have management skills, able to know what is happening in the environment around us and

to have research attributes in our arsenal. It is on these basis and foundation that analysing,

dissecting and conducting an environmental cyber-scan on First National Bank of Botswana

was undertaken.

2. OBJECTIVES

Objectives are necessary as they map a way forward and give a focused approach to any

research. They also form a frame work and give and idea as to where the research is

headed and what is intended to be achieved at the end of it.

The main objectives of this report are three fold and these are to

i. Describe what is meant by environmental scanning of an organization

ii. Analyse content of First National Bank of Botswana’s online content and see if they

are any particular themes, trends or problem areas

iii. Recommend any strategies that can be used in tackling any problems faced

The above objectives are to be achieved by this report being in an easy to read, tranquil to

understand and structured manner that every individual from all walks of life can relate to.

3. SCOPE

Scope can be defined as to what is inside and outside of the report, therefore the perimeters

and boundaries. It is essential to state the scope of the research from the beginning, so as

the reader can know what is being covered, analysed and discussed and what is not.

In terms of scope of this report, it examines FNBB’s online media content, mainly twitter

page, as well as having a look at its Facebook page and any news via the search engine

Google. Analysing mainly their twitter content was done because for the period under

examination being from February 20th to March 20th 2015, FNBB was relatively active on this

particular social media platform, seconded by its Facebook page. There were not many


activities which were news related as in newspaper and business periodicals per say but

these were also looked at because it forms part of FNBB’s environment.

This report does not examine any videos or interviews with First National Bank of Botswana

nor does it examine physical contact with FNBB.

4. LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section of this report, environmental scanning will be talked about in detail, as well as

being defined to show its importance in a Public Relations setup. It is important to be in

touch with the environment as it is the surrounding around the world we live in. These

surrounding are the fundamental essence of our daily lives.

Environmental scanning can be designated to be a component and a part to the puzzle of a

broader picture being global environmental analysis. By global environment of FNBB, this

discusses the micro environment which comprises the suppliers, customers and competitors;

as well as the macro environment which entails industries, markets, companies, competitors

and clients. It can also be put in simpler terms as micro meaning internal environment and

macro meaning external environment of FNBB.

The micro environment literally means the organization itself and all the encounters that

come from the inside the organization. These are customarily controllable factors that can be

taken care of by the organization itself. Micro environment can be broken down into three

main segments being

i. Departments, here we often refer to functional entities in an organization that can

directly influence the running or wellbeing of the organization e.g. management,

finance, research and development, purchasing and accounting departments of

FNBB

ii. Customer markets, these are there different types of markets or people that can use

an organizations products or services e.g. consumers, business, Government,

international and reseller

iii. Publics, these are typically the any groups or activists that have interest in or can be

an impact on the organizations performance and goal achievability e.g. financial

publics such as the different Banking Bodies, media publics, government publics and

general publics

Macro environment usually means all the forces that are of the larger society and affect the

micro environment. When dealing with macro environment according to Kroon, J. (1995),

"General Management" (2nd Edition); they are a quite a number of ways in which these

external environments can be approached. Another way of looking at environmental


scanning is that it is the study and analysis of political, economic, social and technological

events, trends and happenings which can influence a business or a particular market. This is

explained in the PEST analysis which is the acronym for political, economic, social and

technological factors. By adding two more factors to the PEST analysis, being environmental

and legal we can therefore have a PESTEL approach as well.

The PESTEL analysis is consequently the starting point of global environmental analysis

which is the umbrella body and environmental scanning, or cyber-scanning in this instance,

falls under the particular canopy. An elaborative definition of factors and examples under the

PESTEL approach is as follows

i. Political e.g. taxation policy and Government stability

ii. Economical e.g. interest rate and customer liquidations

iii. Social e.g. values, beliefs and education

iv. Technological e.g. internet, social media, research and development

v. Environmental e.g. energy consumption and pollution monitoring

vi. Legal e.g. health and safely and employment law

This hence makes environmental scanning important as it looks at all the above aspects

which can influence, cause perceptions and dictate a way in which First National Bank of

Botswana does business.

As a Public Relations Practitioner, it is one of our mandates to be aware of what is going on

around us, in the business community, online, and in general in the surroundings, and thus

the importance of environmental scanning cannot be undermined. Environmental scanning is

very vital as part of the Public Relations Practitioners role as it keeps them up breast and

within arm’s length of current issues, trends, and news in their environment.

In a casing, the three (3) main factors that are influential and mostly looked at when

discussing environmental scanning are

i. Events

ii. Trends

iii. Issues and expectations of the different interest groups

Front runners in trend breaks are usually formed after the issues are raised and these would

be raised by the stakeholders mainly. These issues then in turn are trends which can result

in value shifts in society, a technological innovation or something on an environmental

phenomenon.


5. METHODOLOGY

Methodology can be best explained as the way in which something is done. It is usually the

how to part. In this segment, I explain how data was obtained for this environmental

scanning project. This can also be looked at as a way of collection method.

First National Bank of Botswana data for analysis for this project was gathered by

i. Setting up Google Alerts for a month, from February 20th to March 20th 2015

Google alerts are warnings that are set on Google for news and events from any

organization, whereby different parameters can be set, in order to filter where one

want the information to come from. These alerts will them be sent to a designated

email address. The information sent to my mail address was then read to analyse

and see what is being said about FNBB.

Above: A screen grab of a typical Google alert setting.

ii. Looking at FNBB’s twitter page

Since this was a cyber-scanning environmental scanning project, it was very

necessary to choose an organization that has an online social media page. First

National Bank of Botswana’s twitter page with 1,689 followers and 1,549 tweets was

looked at to evaluate and digest what was being said and to identify any themes that

occurred. This ties well with the object of identifying any themes, trends or problem

areas.

Left: A screen grab on First National Bank of Botswana

official Twitter page


iii. Going through FNBB’s Facebook page

Though the primary data collection point was its twitter page, it was also necessary to

go through FNBB’s Facebook page with its 13,000 likes, to just also have a look as to

what was being discussed there. It is also worth noting that since Facebook has a lot

more space availability in terms of characters and writing space, maybe more lengthy

issues were discussed.

Above: A screen grab of First National Bank of Botswana official Facebook page

6. QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS

Qualitative content analysis was used in this particular environmental scanning project. First

and foremost, there are generally two types of data analysis namely Quantitative and

Qualitative. The focus here is on the latter, which is data that cannot be reduced to a

numeral form and this includes people’s thoughts, beliefs, behaviours and patterns.

Qualitative content analysis gives a reasoning behind a particular response and a deeper

understanding and meaning to a question.

Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p.1278 defines Qualitative content analysis as “a research method

for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic

classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns”. This definition is relevant

to this research, as it ties in with one of the objectives alluded to in the introduction which is

to look for any themes in the content and discussion forums on FNNB’s online media

content.

According to research principles and project management literature which was looked at

when doing this cyber scanning assignment, six(6) key questions have to be addressed in

every content analysis for it to be successfully executed.


These questions are

i. Which data are analysed?

ii. How are they defined?

iii. What is the population from which they are drawn?

iv. What is the context relative to which the data are analysed?

v. What are the boundaries of analysis

vi. What is the target of the inferences

Once these six key questioned are answered then only can content analysis be deemed to

have been fully covered. It is believed that this research does justice in this regard and is

comprehensive as possible. This research has been done in a systematic, organized

manner, with a foundation based on objectives which form the map and direction which is

takes.

Content analysis, analysed in a Qualitative manner is obtaining data from the content of

documentation and categorising it according to the recording unit. It also allow Public

Relations Practitioners and researchers to come up with a systematic way of identifying

frequently used key words and categorizing different segments of information gathered.

Qualitative content analysis can be broken down into three (3) categories, being

i. To make interpretations about the experiences on a communication tool. These are

experiences of the users of First National Bank of Botswana products and services

and their experiences

ii. To describe and make analyses about characteristics on a communication medium.

These are the certain criteria’s which FNBB customers and clientele expect in terms

of delivery and customer experience

iii. To make suggestion about the effects on a communication tool. These are the

recommendations that clientele of FNBB may have

The above lays emphasis on experiences, characteristics and effects, which in turn gives a

more in depth analysis as to why things are in such a way as opposed to just numbers being

presented. This is one of the many advantages of Qualitative content analysis. It is therefore

one of the main reasons why Qualitative content analysis was identified and used in this

assignment as the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

As a researcher, it is also important to highlight or bear in mind the disadvantages of

something. It is in this light that some disadvantages, though minimal, ought to be

underlined.


The disadvantages of Qualitative content analysis may include

i. The data may be subjective

ii. FNBB data analysis may be difficult to analysis especially if there are too many

themes or trends

iii. Time consuming and resource intensive to collect. However this is not really a

disadvantage in the instance of First National Bank of Botswana as a time frame of a

one month to collect the data was set.

7. POPULATION AND SAMPLE

Population is meant to generally refer to everything in our surrounding. For example, when

we think of population in it usually referred to as the people in particular vicinity and their

respective gender, age, religion and so on. It is a global or wider coverage at large. In

contextualizing this into this cyber-scanning environment assignment, the population can

therefore be meant to mean all companies which have an online media presence. Population

in research can defined as all members of a particular group. Or to bring it further home and

be relevant, the population in this case would be all banking institutes which have an online

media presence whereas the sample would be First National Bank of Botswana. A sample is

a part of the population, hence a smaller portion of the population. It is often referred to as

proportion of the population.

A sample actually possesses the same characteristics as a population especially when

chosen randomly. Take for instance, First National Bank of Botswana was randomly chosen

amongst the larger population of banking industry, but the issues raised or discussed by

customers of FNBB may apply to other banks. The best way to avoid a biased or

unrepresentative sample is to select a random sample, also known as a probability sample.

The great thing or one of the advantages of random sampling is that generalization can be

the deduction, for example if a particular trend occurs on FNBB Twitter or Facebook page

this can be taken that it will occur on all other banking industries, and this may actually be

the case if research was to be done to all the banks in the banking sector.

7.1 Types of Samples

A sample as previously touched on, when discussing population, is a proportion or

representative proportion of the population.

It is generally believed that there are four (4) main types of samples, which can be classified

in to the following

i. A complete sample is a set of samples from a bigger population that includes all such

characteristics that satisfy a set of well-defined selection criteria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_sample


ii. A representative or unbiased sample is a sample chosen from a complete sample

using a selection process that does not depend on the properties of the objects. Here

there is no relation and no defined criteria.

iii. A random sample is defined as a sample where each individual organization of the

population has a known, non-zero chance of being selected as part of the sample. It

is completely random and has no criterion and any once can be selected. This is

what was used when selection First National Bank as a sample from the banking

industry for this particular assignment. Several types of random samples are simple

random samples, systematic samples, stratified random samples, and cluster

random samples.

iv. A sample that is not random is called a non-random sample or a non-probability

sampling. Some examples of non-random samples are samples,

judgment, purposive samples and quota samples

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_random_sample

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_random_sample

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_sampling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratified_sampling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_sampling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_sampling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-random_sampling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-probability_sample

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-probability_sample

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purposive_sample

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quota_sample


8. FINDINGS

WEEK NEWS COVERAGE TWITTER PAGE FACEBOOK PAGE

1 (20-27Feb) Appointment of

Chief Executive

Officer, covered in

FNBB website on

February 20th

-------------

FNBB coverage of

Nthula Lounge,

covered in The

Mmegi Monitor on

February 23rd

-------------

FNBB banks of

transaction fees

income, covered in

The Mmegi on

February 24th

-------------

Man accused of

swindling FNBB

appears for bail,

covered in The

Mmegi on February

24th

-------------

FNBB not stopping

unsecured loans,

covered in The

Voice on February

27th

Daily forex rates were

shared, excluding on

February 21 and 22

due to weekend.

(Saturday and

Sunday)

-------------

There was a complaint

by a customer about

ATMs being out of

order on Feb 24th.

FNBB replied this

complaint on Feb 25th.

After close

examination, it was

discovered that FNBB

is more interactive on

their Twitter page as

opposed to their

Facebook page, and

that mostly the tweets

and information

shared on Twitter was

similar to their

Facebook page

-------------

It was also discovered

that, as per the

growing trend and

maybe due to the

instantaneous

response by FNBB on

Twitter as opposed to

their response on

Twitter, many

customers choose to

voice their queries via

Twitter as compared

to Facebook

2 (28Feb-

6March)

Barclays headhunts

Moleta, this was a

news article tying Mr

Moleta’s previous

On February 28th, a

client complained

about a particular

ATM not working,


First National Bank of Botswana constantly

evaluates its complaints and queries, and

keeps a close eye of issues raised. Case in

point as seen by the screen shot tweet, is

that the ATM which was been frequently

complained about on more than several

occasion, by different customers, was now

job having been at

FNBB, before

Barclays hire him,

as covered in The

Mmegi on March 5th

especially on Month

ends, and this

complaint was duly

addressed by FNBB

on the same day.

-------------


shared, excluding

March 1st which was a

holiday

3 (7-13March) Man accused of

swindling FNBB

slapped with

P100,000 bail, as

covered in The

Mmegi of March

12th


shared through out the

week

-------------

On March 9th, FNBB

asked a client if they

had managed to get

assistance.(Feedback)

4 (14-20March) No online news

coverage was

reported, nor where

any Google alert

received on FNBB

Information was

shared for customers

to tune into radio to

listen about a service

being discussed

-------------

Customers were

advised to tune into

FNBBs weekly

Television show


being close monitored. This shows that FNBB took a pro-active measure after initial

complaints, in oder to avoid future complaints. FNBB in keeping with their slogan of ‘How

can we help you?’ were really being helpful in this instance.

FNBB does take its clients very seriously and is keen in

addressing the issues of each client. As can been seen

in this screen shot, after the customer complained, they

replied that the customers should check DM,which is

short for Direct Message. This means that they were

able to communicate with the customer on a personal

basis and address their issues. This was a two way

symetrical approach of communications that FNBB

applied, thus there was a two way balanced interaction

between FNBB and the stakeholder.

FNBB does not only receive complaints or

queries, but compliments from clients as

seen on the left in the screen shot here. The

main compliments that are aimed at First

National Bank of Botswana are of customer

service and valuing feedback, as alluded to

in the finding table. This is very important in

positioning FNBB as a leading bank in terms

of customer satisfaction and thus creating a

unique selling point from other banking

competitors. The Bank also does appreciate

the feedback and knows the importance of

the customer as per their reply which can also be seen on the screen shot.

Left: information to promote FNBBs Television show

Above: information to tune into a radio show


9. CONCLUSION

Conclusions that can be drawn from this cyber scanning research about First National Bank

of Botswana, are that it is a

i. Vibrant bank, that is very much visible

ii. Customer orientated bank that values its clientele

iii. Bank that communicates and engages with its stakeholders in a fair, and friendly

manner

FNBB is a Bank that mainly practises two (2) models of communication being

i. Press Agentry: this is whereby information is just been sent to online media for

public consumption, e.g. when FNBB mentioned that people should tune into a radio

show or watch its television show, when articles were written about FNBB in

newspapers.

ii. Two way symmetrical: in this case, First National Bank was keeping an open ended

policy, whereby the customers complained, and their complaints where addressed in

a manner where both parties were to be satisfied. An example is when they asked for

a customer to send their details and they will call them back to find out if they have

been helped.

First National Bank of Botswana’s online media content as seen after an analysis of its

twitter page can be classified into three (3) main categories being

i. Complaints/Queries e.g. customers complaining about ATMs not working especially

on month ends, customers wanting to know if they can deposit money at ATMs

ii. Compliments e.g. being completed by a customer on its customer service and

feedback

iii. Public Information e.g. daily forex rates, tune into radio show to listen to FNBB,

watch FNBB television show

iv. Advertisements of Products and services e.g. open a Flexi Fixed account with

FNBB from as little as P100, First Funding providing clients with more than just a

loan

10. RECOMMENDATIONS

Having analysed First National Bank of Botswana’s online media content, through cyber-

scanning and environmental scanning for a month has taught me a lot. It has also put me in

a better position to see what was being discussed, trough close monitoring and evaluation.

One of the key roles of a Public Relations Practitioner is to also come up with


recommendations and alternate measures in the way forward, after having analysed a

situation.

In light on the above conclusions, I therefore recommend that

i. FNBB be more active on its Facebook page and not just rely mainly on its twitter

page, so as to cover more stakeholders and clientele that may not be on twitter, but

active on Facebook

ii. FNBB should engage more private newspapers in terms of news coverage, it was

discovered that mainly one news paper covered FNBB related news over the

one(1month) period of cyber-scanning

iii. FNBB should continue its friendly and fair interaction with its clientele as illustrated

by its twitter page

It is my hope and belief that with the above recommendations, First National Bank of

Botswana will continue to position itself ahead of its competitors and still maintain its status

as largest company on the Botswana Stock Exchange by virtue of its capitalization. This

should also dwell well with its position a most profitable Bank in Botswana, because happy

customers mean more business, therefore more profits.

11. REFERENCES

A list of references is only the sources that were referred to in conducting this cyber-

scanning assignment of First National Bank of Botswana. There are as follows

i. First National Bank of Botswana Official twitter page

https://twitter.com/FNB_Botswana accessed between February 20th 2015 to March

20th

ii. First National Bank of Botswana Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-National-Bank-of-Botswana accessed

between February 20th 2015 to March 20th 2015

iii. First National Bank of Botswana official website

https://www.fnbbotswana.co.bw/ accessed between February 20th 2015 to March 20th

2015

iv. Kroon, J. (1995), General Management (2nd Edition)

v. Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p.1278

vi. Pearson, South Africa, p.76

vii. Slides and presentation from Postgraduate Capacitation Workshop by Dr. Layla

Cassim held on 22-24April 2015

environmental scan assignment henny maruapula s215140516

Documents

national bank botswana

national bank of botswana

henny maruapula

research project

botswana stock exchange

assignment brief

profitable bank

henny mr s215140516