Exercise 12.1: SWOT Analysis (Strengths Weaknesses Other Threats)

Strengths, Weakness, and Other Threats (SWOT)

Hi Everyone,

Conducting a SWOT analysis of your business is actually kind of fun. It won’t take much time, and doing it

forces you to think about your business in a whole new way.

The point of a SWOT analysis is to help you develop a strong business strategy by making sure you’ve

considered all of your business’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats it

faces in the marketplace.

As you might have guessed from that last sentence, S.W.O.T. is an acronym that stands for Strengths,

Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is an organized list of your business’s greatest

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company (think: reputation, patents, location). You can

change them over time but not without some work. Opportunities and threats are external (think:

suppliers, competitors, prices)—they are out there in the market, happening whether you like it or not.

You can’t change them.

Existing businesses can use a SWOT analysis, at any time, to assess a changing environment and respond

proactively. In fact, I recommend conducting a strategy review meeting at least once a year that begins

with a SWOT analysis.

New businesses should use a SWOT analysis as a part of their planning process. There is no “one size fits

all” plan for your business, and thinking about your new business in terms of its unique “SWOTs” will put

you on the right track right away, and save you from a lot of headaches later on.

Team 3: Project Title: MUSIC FOR ALL

Quentin Barnes, Team Leader

Robin Beardsley, Rodney Laine, Brittany Pace, Jersey Qiu

Strengths: Cutting out the high cost of a teacher, it would be cut off thanks to high school or college

students volunteering to teach.

Weaknesses: Income for instruments or projects ideas.

Opportunities: Online platform where volunteers can teach students how to play instruments. Online

platform where kids can learn how to play music in a step-by-step type sequence. Designing and selling t-

shirts to earn money for school instruments.

Threats: The price, instruments can be pricey. An online platform could cut that out, but then we must

think about the students that need help in-person.

Exercise 12.1 SWOT Analysis (Strengths Weaknesses Other Threats)

Designing Careers (LA 291)