Analysis I must say before reading the chapter this week I have never heard of a SWOT Analysis. After reading the chapter it makes perfect sense in how companies use it strategically to be more competitive in the industry that they are in. In choosing which areas of the SWOT Analysis to discuss in this paper I have taken the financial side into perspective. For the Strength I have chosen – Our financial position and credit rating are good. For the Weakness I have chosen – Lack of a formal budget process results in expenses.
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For the Opportunities I have chosen – Most of our customers use us for only part of what our products can be used for. For the Threats I have chosen – New competitor has lured away two of our employees with offers of better pay. I will take each of the issues at hand and discuss the strategies that management should take to better the company by taking advantage of their strengths and opportunities and using them to reduce the impact of the weaknesses and threats. Strength
As a company with a positive financial books and a good credit rating you want to ensure you are making the right decisions in your company to ensure your books stay on the positive side so your credit rating doesn’t begin to decline. For a business prospective this is crucial as the better your credit rating the more money you have available to you if by chance you are looking to expand your company in the future. As a business leader one needs to have strategic plan in place and within that plan have goals and objectives for the company to meet.
Many members of an upper management team come into a business with a vision in place as to where they see the company going. To have a positive financial outlook and a great credit rating can be a great start in ensuring the goals and objectives they have set in place can be completed. Weakness When setting up a business it is crucial to maintaining positive cash flow and positive books that you have a formal budget in place to ensure your expenses stay in check.
As a company leader you need to know where your oney is going and in order to do this you need to review the financials so you can review where the fallout of the expenses is. Once you review the financials you can identify where exactly the expenses are out of control and put a plan in place to correct it. Once the plan is in place you implement it and then come back and review the financial statement again either the next period or the next quarter to see if the plan you put in place is working or if further adjustments are needed. Opportunities
As a company you review what products you provide that consumers are buying and if they are using the product for everything that it is designed for. One option for getting this information is to send out anonymous customer surveys so consumers can tell companies where their product rates to competitors and tell them what parts of the product are used and why they don’t use the product for everything that the product can be used for. Sometimes it can be as simple as repackaging the product and clarifying all the uses of the product.
This is a wonderful business opportunity for a company as it may boost the sales of the product as many people may not have realized everything that a product can do and did not buy it for those reasons. As a good business leader you need to be able to look at the whole picture and see where your product or business can be improved and how to implement those changes. Threat Whether a company is small or large it often deals many different types of threats.
One threat that effect either a large or small company is when a competitor has lured away a good employee by offering them better pay and benefits. For a company to maintain its competitiveness the business leaders must work together to determine where they can possibly improve the pay and benefits they offer to their employees. Whether they put a basic plan of options together to offer employees or if the option exists that they are able to negotiate with each employee as an individual can help ensure that employees are not lured away.
Another threat with an employee being lured away is that company secrets can at times go with that employee. Companies often want to prevent this so negotiating with associates on an individual basis would be best as not all employees want more pay. Many actually prefer flexibility as their families grow. Dealing with employees pay and benefits can be one of the most difficult parts of a company as you need to ensure that you are staying competitive within the industry; however, you also need to ensure that you don’t go over budget on pay and through your books off balance.
This is why when pay is decided so many different upper management individuals are involved. Conclusion Using SWOT Analysis can be very affective for different levels of management. I believe it helps them see the whole picture. Not only the whole picture of their company, but the whole picture of the industry. It helps them to determine where their company can make improvements and where improvements may not be needs but a plan needs to be put in place to ensure that it remains a strength for the company as a whole.
