What is the SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis analyzes your strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats your business faces.SWOT analysis can help your business solve the biggest challenges and find the most promising new markets.

SWOT Analysis Framework is a very important and useful tool for marketing management and other business applications. A clear understanding of SWOT is necessary for business students.

SWOT analysis is used to guide your marketing plans, the more employees you include in the SWOT analysis, the better. Successful business owners find that regularly meeting with all employees to work on the analysis not only results in extraordinarily insightful feedback but also ensures that employees are involved in the planning process. It may only take half a day to set up general guidelines.

A. Internal Analysis

The internal SWOT analysis begins with examining internal strengths and weaknesses.

Sales, profitability, and marketing

Quality

Customer service

Productivity

Financial resources

Financial management

Operations

For each of these areas, ask yourself whether it is a strength or a weakness. It can be both: people sometimes have different points of view. What you’re looking for is a high-level profile of your company’s internal performance. strengthen and defend or improve weaknesses.

B. External Analysis
Although external business factors are not under your control, you can take preemptive or preventive action if you examine their potential impact. Again, this is usually a fairly simple analysis. For every external factor, ask yourself and your employees what opportunities and threats there may be for your business’s success. The following types of factors are typically included in an external analysis:

New Technology

Regulatory factors

The legal framework is also constantly changing. They could become a new area of ​​legal exposure; For example, if you have 15 employees, you must comply with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

The economic environment – local, national and international – has a clear impact on your ability to achieve financial goals. Be aware of them.

Don’t dwell too much on these topics. You are looking for the big forces that affect your business, not the subtle creases. The strategy should be carried out with a wide brush.

C. Act on Your SWOT Analysis

After you have completed your SWOT analysis, select no more than five strengths and opportunities to work on and no more than five weaknesses and threats to address the need to worry. Choose them carefully. Narrow down your choices to ensure you’re focusing on the most profitable areas.

The essence of small business strategy is finding and dominating small niches in the market, satisfying customers better than the next company, and keeping everything simple so strategies can be communicated effectively.

As you narrow down your key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you must decide on each action plan. These metrics form the basis of your strategic marketing goals. You now have a good picture of how your business works and the opportunities and risks in the market.

The SWOT analysis tool is a very useful way to capture and understand these critical findings. It’s like taking a photo of your current business location. Use it to identify the internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats) factors that matter most to your business.

Identifying and writing down your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is the first step. The second step is to maintain and improve your strengths, address your weaknesses, seize or capitalize on your opportunities, and try to minimize the impact of threats on your business.

For example, in your competitive analysis, you may have found that your competitors outperform you in better service, so in-service training can be an action point for the year ahead.

A SWOT analysis should be performed every few months, changing with each review to show how you are addressing internal weaknesses, maintaining your strengths, and capitalizing on your opportunities

Key questions to ask yourself when completing a SWOT Analysis

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
Advantages of your product/service offering?
Competitive advantages?
USPs (unique selling points)?
Experience, knowledge, data?
Financial reserves?
Marketing – Brand Awareness?
Web presence and activity?
Social Networking expertise?
e-marketing activity?
Distribution?
Customer base?
Location?
Price, value, quality?
Accreditations?
Disadvantages of your product/service offering?
Gaps in capabilities?
Lack of competitive strength?
Poor web presence?
Absence of social networking?
Reputation?
Financials?
Known vulnerabilities?
Timescales, deadlines?
Cashflow?
Morale
Processes
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
Market developments?
Competitors’ vulnerabilities?
Industry or lifestyle trends?
Technology development and innovation?
Social networking opportunities?
e-commerce potential?
Global influences?
New markets?
Niche target markets?
Business and product development?
Information and research?
Partnerships, agencies, distribution?
Legislative/Regulatory effects?
Environmental effects?
IT developments?
Competitor intentions?
Market demand?
Sustainable financial backing?
Economy – home, abroad?
Seasonality, weather effects?
Untrained staff?

For many companies, defending market share is a crucial strategy for the coming year. This strategic goal can be achieved in a number of ways, from increased marketing (e.g. sales promotions) to competitive pricing strategies.

In your analysis, you may have identified markets that have good growth potential. You can grow by increasing sales to your existing customers, acquiring new customers, developing new products and services to conquer new markets or a combination of these strategies.

You can also expand your market through better distribution channels.

Product/Service Innovation – This is a new product to be marketed to your existing customers. Many companies incrementally improve their service offerings, but few succeed in creating service innovations that create new markets or transform existing ones.

Enter/diversify into different market sectors – For some companies, selling part or all of the business is the most profitable strategy. projects. Some companies need to consider diversification, entering completely new markets, and finding a new group of customers.

Whatever strategy you choose, you must achieve the strategy by setting goals. Later in the plan, you establish your specific marketing action items to implement the plan.