1. Pest Analysis Report on Arts
Organisations
A case study of the Barbican Arts Centre
Omer Faruk Yeni M00512048
ABSTRACT
Currenteffects of the macro environmentalfactors on the arts
organisation’s strategic management process.

2. 1.Executive Summary
This report provides an analysis and aims to evaluate of the external environmental
factors of the arts organisation that how the environmental changes influence the arts
organisation’s strategic policies and management. As a one of the London’s leading
arts venue the Barbican will be discussed in the report. The Barbican operates wide
variety art and cultural events in its Brutalist well-known iconic building.
In appearance, cultural policies,digital technologies,regional developments and arts
funding system plays a vital role to make a strategic decisions for arts organisations. It
is easily said that widespread social media applications have become an important
opportunity to reach and inform target audience about the arts events content of the
Barbican. Furthermore in the UK arts industry sponsorships are the major challenge
for many organisations both public and private. Therefore the political decisions of
the Government are quite influential on the cultural sector.International cultural
politics have a serious effect on the national or local economy which London
Olympics can be a clear example of this.Additionally, transport facilities affect
considerably the target audience’s behaviour. If the question is about art,culture in
other words leisure time,fun and enjoy,people would think to attend the art events
twice or more due to distance convenience or difficulty.

3. 2. Introduction
Strategic analysis and thinking as an effective method to comprehend structure,
innovation potential and business process of the arts organisations.Hence, identifying
the mission and objectives for every arts organisation in the first place requires the
strategic planning and detailed industry analysis. In the following report, the publicly
funded arts institution the Barbican Centre, which is an ambitious player in a highly
developed art industry of the UK, is going to be analysed with regards to an external
environment. The external environment of the Barbican comprises different factors
that are outside of the organisation but affects its strategic management and policies
indeed. This report aims to examine the Barbican’s key macro environmental factors
through the instrument of Pest analysis factors (political, economic, social and
technological)1 which provides a general overview of the environment, the
organisation operates in.
2.1 Organisation Profile
The Barbican Centre is a unique urban renewal project built as a multi-arts and
conference centre in the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe.2 The
Centre hosts a wide variety of artistic events, classical and contemporary music
concerts, theatre and dance performances, movie screenings and art exhibitions. In
addition to these, it also comprises a London’s leading public library, three
restaurants&bars, and the second biggest Conservatory in London. Concert Hall in the
Barbican is centre of the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony
Orchestra. In 2013,about a decade later of the two instituions’s irritable split the
Royal Shakespeare Company finally turned back to Barbican Centre with its
successful artistic team.3
The Barbican Centre is owned, funded, and managed by the City of London
Corporation, one of the greatest artsfunder in the United Kingdom. As the City’s
1 In the literature on strategy and planning,they are also referred to as PESTEL
factors -political,economic,social,technological and legal factors.
2 "About Barbican", from the Barbican's website".Retrieved 10 December 2014
3 Mark Brown. "Royal Shakespeare Company to return to Barbican Centre | Stage".
The Guardian. Retrieved 10 December 2014.

4. present to the British nation with its matchless Brutalist architecture, the Centre was
formally opened by the Queen Elizabeth II in 1982 at a cost of £161 million.
3. Economic Factors
-The United Kingdom is one of the world’s strongest and most globalised economies4
and of course it is the leading country in creative and cultural industry in the world.
However it can not always said that there is a direct proportion between the
development level of economy and, cultural and artistic development in the context of
country’s cultural policies.
For example historical experiences indicates that some countries face financial
instabilities during periods of economic crisis, but participation to the art and cultural
programmes as a leisure time activity may not decline considerably. Interestingly seen
that there are some examples when people tend to spend more money on
entertainment and artistic events during periods of recession. This is particularly
available for specific cultural products and services such as cinema, theatre
performances and concerts with non-elastic prices - where rises or falls in price do not
importantly influence cultural participation.5
With respect to rapid changes in the economy such as high-tech innovations and
market globalisation, we often speak of “knowledge-based” and “creative”
economies, discussing that creativity is a pioneer of innovation that support economic
developments. In such a changing economic atmosphere, policymakers and business
authorities have increasingly seen the potential of the “cultural and creative economy”
along with that of arts and culture, in increasing creativity. Thus, art and culture have
become important sources of innovation and change in the economy. It calculated that
they accounted for about a million jobs and 4 per cent of GDP in the UK, and earned
7.5billion pound from exports. It also showed, though, that the sector was polarised
between a myriad of very small firms and sole traders and a handful of very large,
often multinational companies.6
One external economic effect can be seen on the Barbican is London Olympics and
4 "KOF Globalization Index". Globalization.kof.ethz.ch. Retrieved 10 December 2014
5 Varbanova L,2013,Strategic Management in the Arts,p.90
6 British Council Mapping Report, 2010

5. Paralympic Games 2012. With an inspiring atmosphere of the London Olympics
Games , the Barbican played an important role during the London 2012 projects and
the organisation gained and extraordinary experience with that. Therefore ‘’The
Barbican was at the heart of the celebrations and was invited, with our partners Create
London, to reopen the north of the Olympic Park with the Open East Festival in July
2013.’’7
Barbican Art Centre is based in a place where well-known financial institutions also
have their business in this area such as Barclays, Santander, NatWest Bank.
Existences of the financial sector around the Barbican are expressive in terms of
regional development. But in general scene, it is not a positive image for audience
who are interested in not only cultural and artistic beauty of the works also the
environment of the building is important for them.
4.Political and Legislative Factors
It is clearly stated that art and cultural production influenced to a great extent by
running political system and subsequent cultural policy approach. Several political
factors generally have an impact on organisation and how they manage their business
Influencing the arts, culture and creative industries are general cultural policy trends,
instruments and methods; tax policy; labour law; and the overall political situation in
the UK that provides stability or instability.8
With regard to the political environment, it has to be outlined that, the Barbican
Centre is owned, funded and managed by the City of London Corporation which is
the municipal governing body.9 Thus, the organisation differentiates itself from any
other multi-art organisations in the UK. Generally seen that, the reason is in terms of
arts funding system of the UK, the Arts Council takes the most significant role in the
country. The Arts Council which invests money from government to support cultural
institutions, projects and individuals by £1.9 billion between 2010 and 2015.10 In this
7 Kenyon N. S,2012, http://www.barbican.org.uk/seasonreview
8 Varbanova L,2013, Strategic Management in the Arts,p. 89
9 http://www.barbicanlifeonline.com/history/barbican-centre/
10 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/

6. case, political decisions are quite important for mostly public funded art institutions
such as Southbank Centre and Tate Modern in London.
One example can explain the importance of government decisions on the
organisation’s existence across the England. Arts Council England faces with budget
cut by almost 30% and government grant of £449m drop to £349m by 2014.11 This
sharp change in the political decision would have a significant impress on the
institutions which exist for cultural life of the UK. Fortunately, the Barbican largely
funded by the City of London Corporation and this collaboration provides a strong
independent field for Barbican to create and maintain its long-term strategic
programme in a wide variety cultural content including world class art, dance, theatre
events and so on with about £17 million a year. But in recent years some other arts
venues came across cuts in their budgets and even some festivals such as Manchester
International Festival faced with major funding cut by Arts Council and they came
across essential difficulties for couple of years.12
Public bodies primarily the government and other public authorities have a vital role
on the cultural life. Their encourage and support for art and cultural attendance has
also positive impact on the society. Cultural participation depends on the audience
behaviour about the current artistic event offers. But every supportive policy is
effective on the people’s decisions to attend or purchase the cultural products and
services. In this case, easily said that, Barbican has a good relations with public and of
course private authorities in the region where it operates in. When the Barbican
determines its strategic plans in independent atmosphere, managers of the
organisation consider to protect and enlarge political relations with related authorities
for their overall achievement in the sector.
Artistic censorship can be discussed as a political and legal pressure on the arts
institutions. As many people found the show controversial, the Barbican faced with
the protesters who forced Exhibit B cancellation which is about slavery and history of
11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11582070
12 http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-
news/manchester-international-festival-braced-for-more-901638

7. ‘Human Zoo’ and finally the exhibition cancelled.13 This experience shows that the
Barbican has to keep the balance between artistic freedom and the social sensitivities
of the public.
5.Socio-cultural Factors
Socio-cultural dynamics of the British society: demographic, cultural and educational
matters; traditional approaches; daily habits, religion and ethnic background of the
society and some others. The demographic structure of the population is one of the
most important issues influencing trends in cultural participation and art consumption,
as well as the choice of marketing strategies for creating needs and offering tastes for
quality artistic programmes. The Barbican offers variety opportunities for particular
its target audience by high-income and middle-income groups. Also the organisation
has special cultural training courses for children and family groups.
The Barbican mainly focuses on world- class art, theatre, cinema and music to
Developing unique approaches to attract particular social class or marginalised or
groups work with specific audiences such as children, youth, immigrants, the elderly
or ethnic minorities is important. Corporate partnerships included social responsibility
elements as companies recognised the value of creative learning. Linklaters supported
the launch of Barbican Box in twelve Hackney schools. Through this imaginative arts
education initiative young people of the City gain confidence and skills while their
teachers benefit from continuous professional development. In the coming years,
Linklaters is planning to introduce students from its partner schools to the Barbican.14
Another effective element of the art organisations is traditional but now in particular
new media so-called social media, which affect arts organisations much more directly
and are part of the micro-environment. The Barbican thinks that they are an ambitious
player in social media with 280.000 Twitter followers and almost 140.000 Facebook
likes. This allows the Barbican to reach feedback and to have an interactive platform.
All these online applications are very important to analyse audience’s needs and their
13 http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/sep/24/barbican-criticise-protesters-who-
forced-exhibit-b-cancellation
14 Barbican Annual Report 2010/11

8. brand attitudes towards to the Barbican.
Although the Barbican has a wide range of programmes including British culture and
values, there are still a few events intended for numbers of minorities reaching
millions who contribute to the social life of the UK with their rich cultural traditions
and their artistic talents. In other words, the Barbican’s artistic programme content
represents a high Britishness identity with Royal Shakespeare Company and London
Symphony Orchestra.
6.Technological Factors
The permanent implementation of new technologies, online tools and smartphone
applications changes the arts world in recent times. Information technologies and
communication strategies have an increasingly essential role in the overall
functioning of arts organisations and projects.15 As Varbanova says ‘’Online
technologies and new media provide a new virtual and digital context for arts
organisations, initiatives and projects.’’16The Barbican offers plenty of options for
free or low-cost promotion of artists, arts products and services. For example Young
Barbican offers a discount for 16-25 year olds who love art and entertainment. The
Number of Young Barbican reached over 50.000 and they gained discounted tickets
across music, dance performance and cinema with cheap prices.17
Also audience’s behaviour becomes an important affect -from consumers of
information they become active participants and collaborators involved in the artistic
process. Giving feedback is becoming easy, sharing comments are quite popular via
social media with each other about an art event or change potential target audience’s
behaviour. The Barbican conducts online and also actual surveys generally end of the
cultural events to evaluate their participant’s opinion and need.
As a unique arts venue the Barbican Arts Centre conduct their strategies in a digital
15 Varbanova L,2013, Strategic Management in the Arts,p. 90
16 Varbanova L,2013, Strategic Management in the Arts,p. 90
17 https://www.barbican.org.uk/youngbarbican

9. platforms, as well as physical one. Digital revolution is definitely accepted by the
Barbican as a universal fact of the new age. This is very popular trend and the reason
is it provides an availability of access to everyone by everyone; in this case there isn't
any barrier for people and digital media applications such as Twitter, Youtube support
art projects and artists overcome borders, and it offers users a ‘second life’ in virtual
platforms. Digitalisation process is forcing the Barbican to follow innovative models
in their own arts management practices and of course in their overall strategic
planning process.
Digital applications are not only by themselves a driving force for the Barbican: they
are also strategic and for what purpose they are used by the Barbican to help
audiences spend less time on orienting or informing themselves or purchasing an
event ticket and to allow them to buy swiftly and from different locations, to make a
comment on their experiences.
7.Environmental Factors
There are a large number of debates not only in the UK but also in the world around
energy saving and climate changes today part of our daily life, environmental and
natural elements are significant part of a strategic planning. The Barbican have a
particular environment and sustainability reports for their cultural programmes and
the Centre bring an environmental agenda into their strategic planning in the arts and
encourage to increase awareness of the environment on the part of artists and arts
managers.
The management of the Barbican considers that in their daily businesses, their cultural
events influence on the environment, local people and economy in many ways so the
Barbican pay attention especially to sound environmental and sustainable values,
principles and practices in their operations.18 The Barbican’s environment strategy
includes : sending zero waste to landfill, the compositing of 100% off all food waste,
offering clients the option to introduce a food mile menu,sourcing all food from
18 Barbican ‘’Environment and Sustainability ‘’worksheet Retrieved on 10 December
201

10. within 250miles of the venue. In addition to this the Barbican’s green credentials
comprise : the installation of a High Voltage system, The implementation of a grey
water reuse and rainwater harvesting system and some others. As a result of these
implementations the Barbican won Change London Awards 2012 for best material
waste recycling project and International Green Awards as well.19
8.Discussion
Arts and cultural industry are becoming an increasingly important part of a broader
creative economy in the United Kingdom. Therefore cultural industry makes a
significant contribution to economic development and national and international
tourism. The Barbican conducts its operations with a large partnerships including
local authorities, Government departments such as Arts Council and DCMS, higher
education institutions, and broadcast, skills and international organisations, to exploit
wide range of opportunities in the cultural and creative economy and remove barriers
that block success of the cultural industry. The Barbican has collaborations with
partners on a series of cultural research and support creativity and artistic excellence
in particular young generation in the country. The Barbican exists for people to
experience the beauty and diversity of world-class art and their variety communities
and to create a connection with work that is excellent and inspirational.20
9.Conclusion and Recommendation
The Barbican has gained a remarkable arts and cultural event experience in many
field from music to dance performance, theatre to film since nearly 30 years. With an
important motivation of 30-year organisational memory, the Barbican has a leading
role in art and cultural productions to spread and reflect the creativity and
inspirations. In the circumstances although the Barbican is called by Reyner Banham
as ‘Britain’s largest voluntary ghetto’ because of its exclusivity, high art culture and
19 www.barbican.org.uk/sustainability
20 Arts Council England Plan 2011/15

11. single-class community’21 it can clearly seen that there is an undeniable achievement
of the Barbican Arts Centre in terms of its artistic programmes, professional work and
quality of the services. Their unique funding system by the City of London
Corporation allow them to follow their ambition and sustain their originality of the
artistic work.
As Sir Nicholas Kenyon said who is managing director of the institution, the
Barbican has an extraordinary strong brand name, visual identity in the London scene.
The challenge here is much more the reputation of the building that 32 years after the
opening ceremony there are still many people both lovers and haters of the Barbican
as an iconic building. The biggest disadvantage of the Barbican is unfortunately
location of the building. The building surrounds by the financial institutions and it is
not easy to convince the audience in terms of unusual atmosphere of the environment
as an art venue, which is located on among the Banks. However new developments
will change all the atmosphere of the Barbican, the reason is Cross rail arrives in 2018
to the area. The instruction of the new station close to the Barbican will affect
positively as new potential audience for the offering art programmes.22
21 Banham,1974,p.222
22 http://www.barbican.org.uk/seasonreview

12. Bibliography
1 In the literature on strategy and planning,they are also referred to as PESTEL
factors -political,economic,social,technological and legal factors.
2 "About Barbican", from the Barbican's website".Retrieved 10 December 2014
3 Mark Brown. "Royal Shakespeare Company to return to Barbican Centre | Stage".
The Guardian. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
4 "KOF Globalization Index". Globalization.kof.ethz.ch. Retrieved 10 December 2014
5 Varbanova L,2013,Strategic Management in the Arts,p.90
6 British Council Mapping Report, 2010
7 Kenyon N. S,2012, http://www.barbican.org.uk/seasonreview
8 Varbanova L,2013, Strategic Management in the Arts,p. 89
9 http://www.barbicanlifeonline.com/history/barbican-centre/
10 http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/
11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11582070
12 http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-
news/manchester-international-festival-braced-for-more-901638
13http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/sep/24/barbican-criticise-protesters-who-
forced-exhibit-b-cancellation
14 Barbican Annual Report 2010/11
15 Varbanova L,2013, Strategic Management in the Arts,p. 90
16 Varbanova L,2013, Strategic Management in the Arts,p. 90
17 https://www.barbican.org.uk/youngbarbican
18 Barbican ‘’Environment and Sustainability ‘’worksheet Retrieved on 10 December
201
19 www.barbican.org.uk/sustainability
20Arts Council England Plan 2011/15
21 Banham,1974,p.222
22 http://www.barbican.org.uk/seasonreview