Your marketing research team has presented you with the research on the external marketing environment. Your first task is to group the findings of the research into threats and opportunities for the marketing plan. Click and drag each of the following phrases to either "Threats" or "Opportunities," and then click Submit.
1. Treads' competitors are using a multi-channel distribution strategy.
2. Millennials do the majority of shopping using online or mobile channels.
3. Treads' manufacturing facility is located southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, which is about one hour from Louisville, KY. Louisville is the main global air hub for a major shipping company.
4. The department store has been closing an average of 20 stores per year over the past 5 years.
5. Traditional malls are on the decline.
A. Threats
B. Opportunities

Environmental scanning is a management strategy that focuses on systematically acquiring informations about occasions, trends, events or patterns through surveys and analysis of these information in an organisation's external and internal environment. The informations acquired through environmental scanning is then used by the executive management in strategically planning the organisation's future and exploitation of available opportunities for the success of the organization.

Generally, the external environmental scanning gives an overview of the opportunities in the market as well as potential threats to an organization.

I. Threats: this refers to anything negative and external that has the potential of causing harm or damage to an organization, business, and products.

II. Opportunities: this refers to anything positive and external that has the potential to give an organization, business and products a competitive advantage over its rivals in the market.

1. Threats: Treads' competitors are using a multi-channel distribution strategy. This simply means that their competitors have a wider outreach and more available to consumers than Treads are.

2. Opportunities: Millennials do the majority of shopping using online or mobile channels. It then spends less.

3. Opportunities: Treads' manufacturing facility is located southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, which is about one hour from Louisville, KY. Louisville is the main global air hub for a major shipping company. This simply means that Treads would spend less on haulage of its finished goods and cargoes for its raw materials.

4. Threats: The department store has been closing an average of 20 stores per year over the past 5 years. This simply means that rather than expanding its business, it is shutting down and as such it revenue will decline.

5. Opportunities: Traditional malls are on the decline. It can take advantage of this to enhance its e-commerce services.