SWOT Analysis
SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
By analyzing the external environment (threats and opportunities), and your company internal environment (weaknesses and strengths), you can use these techniques to think about the strategies of your organization, your department or your team. You can also apply them in thinking about a process, a marketing campaign, or even your own skills and experience.
Analysis of these qualities provides a good overview of a company's current and future prospects. SWOT analyses can be found in the databases listed below.
- Gale Business Insights
Formerly known as "Business & Company Resource Center", this database provides company histories, market share articles, business ranking annual, company profiles and industry profiles.
- Business Source Complete
Search an industry name or the name of a company within the industry; then from the results, click Industry Profiles on the left menu bar.
- First Research (Mergent)
First Research provides industry profiles covering over 900 industry segments. Updating on a quarterly basis, the industry profiles contain critical analysis, statistics and forecasts.
- IBISWorld Industry Research Reports
More than 700 industry categories covered here. Select by keyword or industry code for a full review of industry conditions, current trends, and future outlook.
- Mintel Reports
Mintel Oxygen offers market research reports covering US and International food service marketplaces. Each report gives market-share size and trends, and consumer profiles. Reports may be downloaded as RTF and tabular data may also be saved as CSV files. In order to use Mintel Oxygen you must agree to the Mintel Academic Agreement
- Plunkett Research Online
Plunkett Research Online provides industry analysis and market research for vital industry sectors. For each sector, the database gives market research and trend analysis, statistic information, profiles of leading companies, association and organizations lists
- Gale Business: Entrepreneurship
Planning, funding, starting, and managing resources for starting and operating a business. Provides sample business plans, journals, multimedia content, and more.
Michael E. Porter: Five Forces Analysis
Michael Porter, a Harvard Business school professor developed a framework that models an industry as being influenced by five forces. In his book "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors", Five Forces Analysis is a framework of five forces to determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market for industry analysis and business strategy development.
You can use the model to better understand the industry context in which a firm operates.
Diagram of Porter's 5 Forces (http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml)
Bear in mind that the Five Forces analysis does not supersede SWOT analysis. Five Force analysis focuses specifically on the industry in which a company operates while in a SWOT analysis focuses primarily on the company itself (the strengths and weaknesses of a company are analyzed relative to the entire industry, while the threats and opportunities originate primarily within the industry).
On Competition by Call Number: HF1414 .P67 1998ISBN: 0875847951Publication Date: 1998Organized around three primary categories: Competition and Strategy: Core Concepts, The Competitiveness of Location, and Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems, this collection of articles develops the building blocks that define competitive strategy as we know it. It addresses the important issues of competition.
The Competitive Advantage by Call Number: HD3611 .P654 1998ISBN: 0029250900Publication Date: 1985Competitive Advantage introduces a tool that may be used to diagnose and enhance competitive advantage: the value chain. Value-chain analysis allows the manager to separate the underlying activities a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, and distributing its product or service. It is these activities from which competitive advantage ultimately stems. By showing how all the firm's activities can be examined in this integrated way, Porter provides a practical perspective on competitive strategy.
