The Exchange Area is concerned with the direct relationships of the organisation. The organisation has relations with its suppliers, clients, labour-representatives, financial institutions, competitors, government and the community.

The National and International Environment are the influences from outside on the organisation. It is possible to distinguish these influences in subcategories like:
" Economic environment
" Political environment
" Legal environment
" Socio-cultural environment
" Educational environment
" Other subcategories

These subcategories are identified on basis of their influence on the organisation. The above five are in particular of interest to commercial organisations. The world becomes more and more a global village. Communication technology has made it easier to observe and imitate organisations on the other side of the globe. And more and more countries operate under legal and other international frameworks and are member of block organisations, e.g. NATO, EU, WTO, OPEC, etc.

The analysis of the environment can help organisations to identify
" Scope for expansion of markets
" Scope for improved co-operation between actors
" Scope for changing behaviour of actors

The Environment can analysed with aid of the following tools
" Network visualisation
" Coverage Matrix
" Environmental Scan
" Determinants of behaviour model (Read chapter 3 of Basics in Planning)
" Actor analysis