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SWOT Analysis – Swot’s That And How Can It Make My Business More Profitable. As an experienced business consultant, thought I would risk the wrath of my peers and show you how to use one of the consultant’s most powerful and useful tools – The SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors of your business. Opportunities and threats are external factors that affect your business. First of all get a large writing pad and put a large È in the center of the page. Then put the titles Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats around the cross – one in each sector. Now strengths and weaknesses are internal factors as we said above. They are found in the following: 1. Management structure: such factors as relying too much on the owner. Needing more managers etc. 2. Your workforce: including employee turnover and difficulty of finding skilled staff. 3. Sales: strength of sales, how reliant your sales are on external factors (think ice cream seller), cyclical sales. 4. Operations: your internal efficiency, speed of manufacture or delivery. 5. Financial: cash flow, time to collect on invoices, ease of obtaining loans. Your opportunities and threats can be found in the following categories:
Pictorial: Place each of the SWOT’s so that the more troublesome the problem is the farther away from the È you place it. The better the factor then the closer to theÈ you place it. View the grid and look at solving the outlaying problems first. The tighter the display is to the center of the È - the better shape your business is in. Numerical: Give each item an rating from 1 to 5 as to its importance to your business with 5 being the most important. Also give each factor a rating from A to E as to its impact on your business, with E being the highest impact. Now investigate all the E’s and 5’s if they are bad factors then change or mitigate them. If they are strengths and opportunities then build upon them. Obviously the more high strengths and opportunities combined with low weaknesses and threats the better your business is.
------------------------------------------------- © Copyright 2006 - 2007 Biz Guru Lee Lister writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her www.clikks.com where she sells her informational products. With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses. If you would like more help and assistance in setting up your new business then visit www.startmynewbusiness.com for advice and assistance. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached. ------------------------------------------------- |
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Biz Guru, All rights reserved.
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