SWOT: What they told us

October 12, 2008 in Education, Finance, Start Up
Tags: Business, focus, Opportunities, Startups, Stenghts, SWOT, SWOTing, Web2.0

So continuing with my previous post about fear I will like to remember a bit of my junior classes at college about the SWOT analysis you have to do for your business or organization. I do a SWOT analysis for almost everything, I think I’ve interiorized the importance of the idea and i want to share how this process can help us focus a bit more on the important things in these times when economy  suggests we do that. 

Strenghts

This are the things you have that make you rock. Every person in the world has at least one strength that makes them rock, every company has one and everything has one too. The first thing a business needs to do these days is ask themselves What makes us rock? What makes users come here everyday? What makes users watch every episode? What makes users post comments? or whatever your result measures are. 

Strengths are things people notice that makes them want your product instead of the one made by anybody else.  Strenghts are the resources you have inside, are the things you can work to improve. 

In this times we need to look to the strenghts and make them more powerful than ever starting with people. In the 21st century we all know brains are the most valuable asset so we need to start developing those in ways we’ve not done it before. That is our main strength, we could lose our computer, servers, HQ offices, or even our house, but we don’t lose the brains.

 

Weaknesses 

This are the things we suck at. It’s a very politically incorrect way of saying it, but we definitely are not doing enough to change our weaknesses into strenghts or neutral features. A weakness is a thing that will make users go away from  to other people’s product or service. In the times of recession we need to value every user we have so we need to take all of our time monitoring what weaknesses we have. The best way to do this is to accept all the feedback we can, read it and act quickly to solve any problems. If you solve users problems they will most likely love you. I know i will love a company that solves my problems easily or that adapts to serve my needs. 

You are allowed to have lot’s of weaknesses the only one you are not allowed to have is : lack of communication with your users.

 

So far all this has been written over and over again and all entrepreneurs know that they need to focus on their Strenghts and Weaknesses.

Opportunities and Threats 

Right now we have lot’s of threats and many people fail to see the opportunities blinded by fear. In my last post i talked about how fear may lead people to act in ways that will cause damage to themselves and to others. On this times of economic crisis what will bring an edge to us is focusing on the Opportunities, more than on the threats. Of course we need to focus on threats, our future depends on what we do to keep them away from us. But this times bring endless opportunities. Stocks go lower and lower as people sell, advisors rate some stocks on the “SELL” list, the truth is that when you are selling somebody else is buying and it may be Warren Buffet, he understands that when the market goes down he has an opportunity to buy.

Remember a bear market brings opportunities for investors and for businesses to start focusing on markets that they didn’t saw in the first place. So i suggest you do a postive check on the world outside to see who might be interested in your product or a variation of it, what companies that may add some know-how to your organization are on sale and for low prices or what skills are being needed that you had and thought will never use. 

 

SWOT all together

Finally if you are focusing on keeping the inside lean you will be able to react quickly to opportunities. Remember this is the theory they teach in every business school, in every first day at work or in every book about business. 

My intention here is to remember that the theory may work well this time. Stop focusing or entering in panic because markets are going down and start to focus on what  Strenghts you have that will make everyone keep coming to you, look at what people want from you that you are not offering (opportunities), on what other people are failing to achieve so you can do that (others people weaknesses are also opportunities) and finally focus on eliminating everything that makes you weak and a potential victim. 

So if you need to take a habit these days take the one of SWOTing all you see. Starting for yourself or your business to the pet shop (you can find opportunities there). It may seem like a time taking process, but in time you will do it naturally.