We'll start with a little history of Vermont Teddy Bear Company. John Sortino founded the Vermont Teddy Bear Company in 1981 from a pushcart on the streets of Burlington, Vermont. Mr. Sortino was an entrepreneur and realized that the company had become too large for him to manage. In order for the company to be successful in the future, he decided to step down as CEO. In 1995 R. Patrick Burns was named the new CEO of the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. Even though the CEO changed the name of the company, the goal remained the same, “to design and produce the finest teddy bears made in America, using American materials and labor” (Wheelen and Hunger, 2006, p 22-6 ). In 1996 Vermont Teddy Bear Company changed its name to "The Great American Teddy Bear Company". This has caused uncertainty among customers. The confusion caused a decline in sales, and the company reverted to the Vermont Teddy Bear Company name. In another attempt to explore growth opportunities, they decided to change their distribution from Bear-Grams signature to retail catalogs. This also proved unsuccessful and eventually Bear-Grams once again became the focal means of distribution and strategic marking as this was the most thriving of the distribution methods (Wheelen and Hunger, 2006, p22-4). Due to declining performance, R Patrick Burns stepped down as president and CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear Company in 1997. Chief Financial Officer, Elisabeth Robert, took over the title with her own vision for the future: reduce costs . Robert's decision was to explore offshore sourcing of materials and manufacturing alternatives to reduce the company's cost of goods sold and to broaden available sources of supply (Wheelen and Hunger, 2006, p22-6). Elisabeth Roberts also thought that they were not only in the teddy bear business, but also in the gift business. He defined the competition as a business that "sells chocolates, flowers and greeting cards. It targets last-minute shoppers who want near-instant delivery" (Wheeler and Hunger, 2006, p22-4). They had an advantage knowing that the competition went beyond toys, allowing them to market their product in several areas with successful sales. Environmental scanning is the monitoring, evaluation and dissemination of information from external and internal environments to key company personnel. . The easiest way to perform an environmental scan is through SWOT analysis.