How To Do a SWOT Analysis Marketing Essay
Marketing Essay: How To Do a SWOT Analysis
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It's a four-part approach to analyzing a company's overall strategy or the strategy of its business units. All four aspects must be considered to implement a long-range plan of action.
In order to swat the competition you need to understand SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It's a way to analyze a company's or a department's position in the market in relation to its competitors. The goal is to identify all the major factors affecting competitiveness before crafting a business strategy.
SWOT Breakdown
SWOT identifies the internal and external factors that affect an organization. Here’s the breakdown of SWOT by internal and external variables:
Internal factors
(Strengths and weaknesses)
• A corporate structure, culture and resources
• Shareholders
• Customers
• Competitors
External factors
(Opportunities threats)
• Politics
• Technology
• Society
• Economics
SWOT comes from an old term from the strategic planning field. Marketing gurus have taken familiar terms from old "situation analysis" principles -- like core competencies (your company's main business), liabilities (weak points that need improvement), customers and competitors -- and simply given them a catchy new acronym. "The purpose of strategy is to be really clear before you take the direction. The point of a SWOT analysis is to have the best shot at a grounded plan," says Rashi Glazer, co-director of the Center for Marketing and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley.
For example, an information technology department needs to determine the strengths and weaknesses of its people and its technology. It also needs to make sure the IT strategy complements the company's business goals. The department head needs to ask: What is each staff member good at? What are they not good at? Project leaders also must consider opportunities and threats -- or customers and competitors. How attractive is the market or direction they're considering? What's their market share and cost structure?
Delta Air Lines Inc., for example, chose to invest in a multibillion-dollar customer service system that addresses the flight delay problems experienced by 20% of its passengers. Although some companies might think the move was excessive considering 80% of customers have no problems, Delta believed customer service was an important area for increasing market share and that competitors could pose a threat if Delta didn't address...