The ever changing environment provides an infinite opportunity to record environmental data. Moreover, data are generated as a by-product of every transaction or event. Indiscriminate data acquisition is costly and not necessarily beneficial. Collected data must be stored, and retrieved according to wants. However, only data that satisfy specific needs will be valuable for problem solving.
Information refers to evaluated data that are considered useful by an individual in problem solving.
Obviously, what constitute information for one individual may be worthless for another individual, and devoid of value for the same individual under a different circumstance. The irony is that without the availability of collected data, it would be impossible to provide information to the decision maker. Therefore, it is no longer the collection of environmental data, or the absence of such activities that matters. The key is to develop the understanding of information needs for problem solving, to associate information with data sources, and to collect the data within the timeframe when data collection is still possible and affordable. The Environmental Scanning Process Scanning refers to the process of information acquisition for decision making.