SWOT How do I evaluate a marketing idea, product or company? The SWOT Analysis – Strengths – Weaknesses – Opportunities – Threats This helps you compare yourself to your competitors

Strengths What sets your company apart from the others? What makes people love your product? How are you positioned in the market? – Are you a leader (like Apple)? – Are you trying to keep up with the market (like Nokia)? Nokia was eventually bought by Microsoft Nokia then bought back its shares and merged with Alcatel Lucent

Weaknesses What is your company lacking in? – Location? – Product availability? – Design? – Employee Training? – Marketing?

Opportunities Where you can make improvements? Is one of your competitors weaknesses creating an opportunity for your product to shine? Are the markets changing in your favor? – Are there more people using your type of product? – Example: More people apply to college Opportunity: You can raise your prices and people will pay more for the same product – a college education

Threats Who are your competitors? Is the regulatory environment in your favor? Are we in a growing economy? Is your product in a mature stage of development? Are people still interested in buying it? Is there a better technology out there?

Measured Growth How do small companies grow into big ones? – Wal-Mart started as one store – How did it get to be the biggest company in the world? – Do a SWOT Analysis

Your Task Go to my webpage and open “SWOT Analysis” Using your WSI product, do a SWOT analysis Fill in each quadrant of the page Put your name in the header