So what do we do?: In June, Marco sorted the changes outside Lena's Bakery Ltd into a STEEPLE analysis (6.3.1). Now it is November 2026.
Lena's question: Station Road has been open for two months, and its shelf of ready-packed breakfasts sells about 60 a morning.
Lena asks the question the list cannot answer by itself: should High Street, Market Square and Park Road sell packed breakfasts too, from January 2027?
A STEEPLE analysis describes the world outside a business. It does not choose anything. Using it for a choice (applying it) means holding one decision up against every entry and asking three questions.
Three questions for every entry
- Does it bear on this decision? Some entries matter a lot for one choice and not at all for another.
- Which way does it push? For the plan, or against it.
- How much does it weigh? A big, certain change that arrives soon counts for more than a small, possible one years away.
Lena and Marco take the first two questions down the list, one entry at a time.
| Marco's entry | Does it bear on the packed-breakfast decision? | Which way? |
|---|---|---|
| Social: more people buy breakfast on the way to work | Yes | For, though most commuters pass Station Road, not the three town shops |
| Technological: commuters order and pay by phone | Hardly | Phone orders already run at Station Road; the town shops serve people who walk in |
| Economic: dearer flour, tight household budgets | Yes | Against: shoppers counting every dollar may skip an extra |
| Environmental: customers want less plastic around packed food | Yes | Against, unless the packaging changes |
| Political: High Street closed to cars on Saturdays from spring 2027 | Yes, for one shop | For at High Street: more people passing Aisha's shop on foot |
| Legal: allergen labels on all packed food from January 2027 | Yes | Against: three more shelves to label and check, starting in the launch month |
| Ethical: shoppers favour businesses that treat staff fairly | No | It matters to the bakery, but not to this choice |
Same list, different decision: Ask about a different decision, say whether to raise the price of a loaf, and the same list gives different answers. The labelling law would hardly matter; the dearer flour and the tight budgets would matter a lot.
So a STEEPLE analysis is written once, but applied fresh to each decision.
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Sometimes the question is the other way round: one factor, and what it could lead to for the business (its implications).
Interest rates rise: In the same month, the central bank raises interest rates, the price of borrowing money. The news is the same for every business in the country. What it means for Lena's Bakery is not.
Follow one factor through the business
Its customers
Households with loans and mortgages pay more interest each month, so they have less left to spend.
At the bakery: bread holds up, but cakes and packed breakfasts, the extras, may sell less.
Its costs
Money already borrowed at a rate that can change now costs more.
At the bakery: the overdraft. On the $15,000 it owed at the end of 2025, every extra percentage point costs about $150 a year.
Its plans
New borrowing costs more, so a project that paid its way last month may not now.
At the bakery: the second deck oven. Borrowing its $45,000 costs $450 a year more for every extra percentage point, so Lena may wait.
Put a number on an implication wherever the case gives you one. Suppose rates rise by two percentage points.
| Borrowing | Amount | Extra interest a year at 2 points more |
|---|---|---|
| Overdraft | $15,000 | $15,000 × 2% = $300 |
| Loan for the deck oven | $45,000 | $45,000 × 2% = $900 |
| Together | $60,000 | $1,200 a year less profit, before a single customer changes |
Implications belong to this business: A café with no loans feels higher interest rates only through its customers. Lena's Bakery feels them in its overdraft and in the oven it plans to buy.
Each implication has two steps
What the change does
Borrowing costs more.
What that means here
The oven costs $450 a year more per point, so Lena may put it off.
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Back to the packed breakfasts. Five entries push one way or the other, but they do not all count the same. Lena and Marco weigh each one with three questions.
How big?
- How much does it change sales, costs or the way the bakery works?
- Put a number on it where the case gives one
How likely?
- Is it happening already, certain to happen, or only a plan or a worry?
- A law with a date is certain; a council plan can still change
How soon?
- Does it arrive before the decision takes effect, or years after?
- January 2027 matters to a January launch; 2030 hardly does
| Entry | How big | How likely, how soon | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social: breakfast on the go | Large at Station Road; smaller in the town shops, where most customers come later to shop | Happening now | Medium, for the town shops |
| Economic: tight budgets | Some shoppers skip extras | Happening now | Medium |
| Environmental: less plastic | Paper packs cost about 5 cents more: $3 a morning on 60 packs | Growing now | Small, once the packs change |
| Political: car-free High Street | More people on foot past Aisha's shop on Saturdays | A plan, not yet decided; spring 2027 | For High Street only |
| Legal: allergen labels | Labels to print and check on three more shelves | Certain: it is law, from January 2027, the launch month | Must be met; manageable |
Turning weights into a decision: The heaviest entries decide. Most commuters are at Station Road, the law is certain but manageable, and High Street may soon be full of Saturday walkers.
So a sensible choice: start with High Street in January, in paper packs with the new labels. Add Market Square and Park Road only if High Street sells well by the summer.
A decision from a STEEPLE has three parts
- The choice. Packed breakfasts at High Street from January, not all three shops at once.
- The entries that decided it. Where the commuters are, the certain labelling law, the Saturday walkers.
- The condition that would change it. If the council drops its High Street plan, or High Street sells few by the summer, stop there.
Marco's list helped. But when Lena and Marco check the High Street plan, the questions still open are not on it.
What STEEPLE cannot tell them
It looks only outside
Nothing on the list says whether Priti's team can bake and pack more breakfasts at Mill Lane before the vans leave, or what that costs.
Those are internal: the strengths and weaknesses of a SWOT (6.1.1), and the figures.
It is a snapshot
Marco wrote the list in June. By November interest rates had risen.
An old list can steer a new decision wrong, so it needs updating before each one.
Many entries are uncertain
The council's High Street plan is still only a plan, and 'customers want less plastic' is what a few customers have said.
Weighing a guess carefully still leaves a guess.
The weights are opinions
Lena sees the plastic worry as small; Marco sees the start of a trend.
The list does not settle who is right. Evidence, such as a short trial, can.
What the STEEPLE gives
- The changes outside, sorted so none is missed.
- Opportunities and threats, for this decision.
- Early warning, such as a law that starts in January.
What the decision also needs
- What the bakery can do: Mill Lane's time, Priti's team.
- The figures: the cost of paper packs and labels, the sales a shop needs.
- Up-to-date evidence: a fresh list, or a trial at one shop.
A start, not the finish: A STEEPLE analysis starts the thinking; it rarely finishes it. Its opportunities and threats go into a SWOT beside the bakery's own strengths and weaknesses (6.1.1), and the figures test whether the choice pays.
Copying the seven entries out of a case decides nothing. Each needs its effect, its weight and its place in the choice.
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How this comes up: STEEPLE is applied in longer case questions, and in short questions on one factor.
How it is asked
- A choice, for ten marks. In a longer case, a STEEPLE analysis is often part of the stimulus: a table comparing two or three countries, sites or suppliers, letter by letter. The question asks which one the business should choose.
- One factor. A short question can hand you one factor, such as rising interest rates, and ask for two of its implications for the business.
The ten-mark pattern
- Set the decision. What is being chosen, and why now.
- The first option, for and against. Two or three entries from the table, each with its effect on this business and a number where the case has one.
- The second option, the same way. Every option gets its case for and against.
- Weigh. Which entries matter most here: how big, how likely, how soon. Bring in the business's own side from the rest of the case.
- Choose. One option, the condition that would change it, and what the case does not tell you.
Two traps
- The table copied out. Rewriting each row with 'this is good' is description. Each entry needs what it does to this business and which way it pushes.
- Outside only. A STEEPLE table leaves out the business's own side: its skills, capacity, brand and cash. Bring those in from the rest of the case, or the choice rests on half the evidence.
Table 1: Marco's STEEPLE comparison of the two flour suppliers.
| Factor | Valley Grain | Hollins Milling |
|---|---|---|
| Economic | Price follows the local harvest; ingredients $0.96 a loaf now | Ingredients $0.92 a loaf, fixed for twelve months; then follows world wheat prices and the exchange rate |
| Environmental | Another dry summer would cut the local harvest again | Wheat from several countries, shipped in |
| Social | More shoppers look for food grown locally | Wheat grown abroad |
| Political | No change expected | The government is discussing a tax on imported wheat from 2028 |
| Legal | The January 2027 labelling law applies | The January 2027 labelling law applies |
| Ethical | A farmers' cooperative; its members rely on a few large buyers | A national company |
Using Table 1 and other information in the stimulus, recommend whether Lena's Bakery Ltd should keep buying its flour from Valley Grain or switch to Hollins Milling.
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