Day 21: OPERATION: Create Your Own Path

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Created on Sunday, 04 August 2013 15:06

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Written by Veronica Jorden

 

Day 21 of Operation: Create your own path brings advice about evaluating your competition.

 

In order to understand advantages your competition might have, it is important to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and what opportunities and advantages you and your company have on your side, and what threats to your success might give the advantage to your competitors. In short, before you begin a business it is always a good idea to do a S.W.O.T analysis.

 

 

Leti Riggle

Sport Diva Bands

http://sportdivabands.storenvy.com/

 

"Research successful businesses such as what you are interested in starting. Once you do your research, outline the pros and cons of your product or service and ensure you inform your target audience the benefit to them you have in comparison to similar products or companies who offer similar products or service."

 

Mind Tools

Excellent skills for an excellent career

www.mindtools.com

 

SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face.

 

Used in a business context, a SWOT Analysis helps you carve a sustainable niche in your market. Used in a personal context, it helps you develop your career in a way that takes best advantage of your talents, abilities and opportunities.

 

What makes SWOT particularly powerful is that, with a little thought, it can help you uncover opportunities that you are well placed to exploit. And by understanding the weaknesses of your business, you can manage and eliminate threats that would otherwise catch you unawares.

 

More than this, by looking at yourself and your competitors using the SWOT framework, you can start to craft a strategy that helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors, so that you can compete successfully in your market.

 

Strengths:

  - What advantages does your organization have?

  - What do you do better than anyone else?

  - What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others can't?

  - What do people in your market see as your strengths?

  - What factors mean that you "get the sale"?

  - What is your organization's Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

 

Consider your strengths from both an internal perspective, and from the point of view of your customers and people in your market.

 

Also, if you're having any difficulty identifying strengths, try writing down a list of your organization's characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths!

 

When looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors. For example, if all of your competitors provide high quality products, then a high quality production process is not a strength in your organization's market, it's a necessity.

 

Weaknesses:

  - What could you improve?

  - What should you avoid?

  - What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?

  - What factors lose you sales?

 

Again, consider this from an internal and external basis: Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you don't see? Are your competitors doing any better than you?

 

It's best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

 

Opportunities:

  - What good opportunities can you spot?

  - What interesting trends are you aware of?

  - Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

  - Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale.

  - Changes in government policy related to your field.

  - Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on.

  - Local events

 

Threats

  - What obstacles do you face?

  - What are your competitors doing?

  - Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products or services changing?

  - Is changing technology threatening your position?

  - Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?

  - Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?

 

This is an excerpt from the following: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm

For more information on S.W.O.T, a free worksheet on S.W.O.T analysis, and more great tools to help you build your skills and your business, visit Mindtools: www.mindtools.com