174  Blockchain

The political policies can impact the whole organisation’s business

sectors or part of them. This is one of the important areas to focus

on as it can impact the organisation’s survival, sustainability and also

profitability.

• Economic: As the name suggests, the economic area of the PEST

focuses on the economical factors like interest rates of the central

banks (like Bank of England or Federal Reserve), exchange rate of the

currency against others (e.g. GBP to USD), economic growth (GDP),

inflation and recession.

• Social: The social factors within PEST model analysis can include

anything within social areas. It may include demographic and age dis-

tribution (Asian with 18–25 years of age etc.), cultural attitudes (reli-

gious, vegetarian, behaviours, etc.), workplace (work from home or

work from office) and lifestyle trends (healthy or unhealthy lifestyle).

This is also one of the most important factors as not understanding

social factors can kill the strategy of the organisation.

• Technological: The technological components of the PEST model focus

on the impact of technological development, disruptions, innovations

(artificial intelligence, robotics, Cloud, Internet, blockchain, digital

channels) and also government adoption of the technology within mul-

tiple sectors. It includes the Government’s and organisations’ adoption

of upcoming disrupting technologies locally and globally. Government

spending on the technology research and support to universities is also

an influential perspective under technological factors.

What are the additional areas assessed by PESTLE model?

In the above section, we discussed everything about PEST model. The PEST

model has various variants, and one of them is called PESTLE. Apart from

all the factors covered under PEST model, there are additional two to form

PESTLE model. We will discuss the other two factors in this section.

• Legal: The legal factors of PESTLE model relate closely to political

factors as well. Legal factors include laws related to consumer, trade

and copyright. These are tightly related to political decisions made by

local and global governments.

• Environmental: The environmental factors of the PESTLE model

include everything related to environment. This factor has become

more significant than ever due to global focus towards global warm-

ing and commitment from all countries to contribute towards

reduction in global warming. Some of the environmental factors

that impact organisations are climate change, pollution, renewable

energy, supply of natural resources and more importantly govern-

ment policies towards net-zero, that is, use of renewable energy, cut-

ting down on pollution and use of recyclable products to ultimately

save the planet earth.