SWOT ANALYSIS

Prepared September 3, 2010

1. What is a SWOT for?

In most introductory marketing courses there are bi-weekly case analyses that you have to complete as a group. A major and mandatory part of performing a case analysis is understanding the SWOT of the business. Once you have figured out the points in your SWOT you can build see what type of marketing plan will work best for that business (i.e. price, promotion, positioning, etc). There’s a little more to a case analysis than that, but that’s what the course if for!

2. What does SWOT stand for?

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats 

3. What does SWOT really mean?

Even though you will go a lot more in detail about what a SWOT is, here’s the basic scoop you’re going to need for your first trial run case study:

Strengths & Weaknesses

Both of these headings describe things that are intrinsic to the business you are studying and are very specific. You should be able to pull these directly from the case study reading. They may not be word for word, but they are definitely inferred from the material. While these strengths and weaknesses may be true about other companies, it doesn’t matter because you’re only looking at the specific company in the study.

Strength statements:

- “Company X makes it’s own materials (i.e. decreased costs)”

- “Company X has a very low turnover of staff”

- “Company X is eco-friendly certified”

Weakness statements:

- “Company X does not advertise”

- “Company X has outdated equipment”

- “Company X does not have an Customer Support Department”

Opportunities and Threats

Unlike strengths and weaknesses, these opportunities and threats can be applied to both the specific company and any other company in the industry. They are things that may effect the company but are not intrinsic to the company itself; that is that the company can plan against / for these things but they cannot control them by making a change in the company itself. Usually a few of these can be found in the case study, but a good marketer (and a good student) will do a little research to add to these.

For the purposes of the following example lets say Company X is in the Cereal industry and they make a fruity, sugary, kid targeted cereal. Keep that in mind when reading the O’s and T’s.

Opportunity Statements:

- “Toy Company A is looking to find a cereal company to put their toy in as a prize”

- “Cereal can be used to make desserts”

- “A new study found that kids love to eat things that are blue”

Threat Statements:

- “Dietitians say sugary cereal is bad for kids”

- “People are moving away from cereal to eat bagels”

- “Grocery stores have raised their rent for shelf space”

4. How many do I need?

In general it’s a good idea to have at least 5 – 10 for each section. The more you get used to doing these the easier it is to write them.

TIP: If you’re in a group try getting each person to write down as many ideas as possible for each section and then compare. It’ll take less time than doing it all together at once and you’ll probably have more ideas!