SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis is a really simple tool to help you focus your thoughts on the issues facing your business, and as such is something I would strongly recommend any company carrying out on at least a yearly basis.
SWOT analysis can be carried out by a company director having little or no previous experience of the exercise, and can be completed in less than a day. A SWOT analysis can help you to re-think the way your company markets itself and make fundamental improvements to your business performance.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Quite simply, a SWOT analysis involves setting out the strengths and weaknesses of your company and the opportunities and threats your company is facing, as you perceive them. This can then be used to prioritise the issues and to focus your efforts on addressing those matters that are most important.
As an example, imagine a new company which has raised venture capital to provide a financial service to small businesses. Its SWOT analysis might look as follows:
Strengths
Well funded
Excellent management team
Expertise
Strong vision & good value proposition
Excellent marketing consultants
Good access to / experience in financial markets
Weaknesses
Lack of infrastructure & staff
Few or no customers
Few or no existing partners / relationships
No Brand Awareness / Preference / Reputation
Lagging others who are established
Currently unaware of what marketing strategies will work
Opportunities
Virgin opportunities in new territories
Potentially lucrative market
Growing market
Fully automated secure internet-based trading
Market share can only increase
Threats
Difficulty generating new business
Difficulty to respond to demand as it develops
Need to oust existing suppliers from
-affiliate relationships
-advertising relationships
-press mindshare / reputation
-loyal customers
Incorrect marketing strategy
Euro adoption
Prioritisation
Analysis of the SWOT then allows the company directors to prioritise the issues and ensure that all are addressed satisfactorily. Questions you might ask yourself, and the conclusions you might come to are:
Q: "How can we ensure we capitalise on our strengths?"
- e.g. by using our good funding to launch an aggressive marketing campaign.
Q: "How can we negate our weaknesses, or turn them to our advantages?"
- e.g. a perceived weakness might be smallness and having few staff. Turning this to your advantage, you can argue you have a low cost base, and can guarantee your customers they'll receive attention from senior mamber of staff.
Q: "How do we remedy the weakness of not knowing what marketing strategies will work?"
- e.g. analyse successful competitors' marketing activities and use that as a starting point. Or try a broad range of activities, measure the effectiveness of each, and concentrate future efforts on the most successful activities.
Q: "How do we oust existing suppliers"
- e.g. offer a one-off discounted or free service to your potential customers, so they have a reason to try you out. Aim to wow them with your superior product or service so that they switch to using you permanently.
Hopefully that illustrates sufficiently just how straightforard a SWOT analysis is, and how useful it can be for focussing your thoughts on how to address important business issues. If you require any marketing consultancy, I can be contacted via the precis marketing website.
Robert Frost
Director, Precis Marketing
B2b marketing site
Precis Marketing - Marketing Agency
This is where I used to work
Our web design skills
My friend's band
SWOT analysis can be carried out by a company director having little or no previous experience of the exercise, and can be completed in less than a day. A SWOT analysis can help you to re-think the way your company markets itself and make fundamental improvements to your business performance.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Quite simply, a SWOT analysis involves setting out the strengths and weaknesses of your company and the opportunities and threats your company is facing, as you perceive them. This can then be used to prioritise the issues and to focus your efforts on addressing those matters that are most important.
As an example, imagine a new company which has raised venture capital to provide a financial service to small businesses. Its SWOT analysis might look as follows:
Strengths
Well funded
Excellent management team
Expertise
Strong vision & good value proposition
Excellent marketing consultants
Good access to / experience in financial markets
Weaknesses
Lack of infrastructure & staff
Few or no customers
Few or no existing partners / relationships
No Brand Awareness / Preference / Reputation
Lagging others who are established
Currently unaware of what marketing strategies will work
Opportunities
Virgin opportunities in new territories
Potentially lucrative market
Growing market
Fully automated secure internet-based trading
Market share can only increase
Threats
Difficulty generating new business
Difficulty to respond to demand as it develops
Need to oust existing suppliers from
-affiliate relationships
-advertising relationships
-press mindshare / reputation
-loyal customers
Incorrect marketing strategy
Euro adoption
Prioritisation
Analysis of the SWOT then allows the company directors to prioritise the issues and ensure that all are addressed satisfactorily. Questions you might ask yourself, and the conclusions you might come to are:
Q: "How can we ensure we capitalise on our strengths?"
- e.g. by using our good funding to launch an aggressive marketing campaign.
Q: "How can we negate our weaknesses, or turn them to our advantages?"
- e.g. a perceived weakness might be smallness and having few staff. Turning this to your advantage, you can argue you have a low cost base, and can guarantee your customers they'll receive attention from senior mamber of staff.
Q: "How do we remedy the weakness of not knowing what marketing strategies will work?"
- e.g. analyse successful competitors' marketing activities and use that as a starting point. Or try a broad range of activities, measure the effectiveness of each, and concentrate future efforts on the most successful activities.
Q: "How do we oust existing suppliers"
- e.g. offer a one-off discounted or free service to your potential customers, so they have a reason to try you out. Aim to wow them with your superior product or service so that they switch to using you permanently.
Hopefully that illustrates sufficiently just how straightforard a SWOT analysis is, and how useful it can be for focussing your thoughts on how to address important business issues. If you require any marketing consultancy, I can be contacted via the precis marketing website.
Robert Frost
Director, Precis Marketing
B2b marketing site
Precis Marketing - Marketing Agency
This is where I used to work
Our web design skills
My friend's band
posted by b2b marketing at 6:44 pm
