How to find a hole in your business and fix it

Most business owners don’t want to think about their weaknesses. Just like posting photos on social media, its natural to choose the best pictures and delete the unflattering ones. In business we don’t like to shine a light on the things we feel may attract criticism. The Business Minder can help you to turn these weaknesses around by completing a SWOT analysis with you. When you’re looking for a way to differentiate yourself from your competitors, it may be beneficial for your branding and business to turn things upside down. By taking your weakness and transforming it, you may be able to improve your business and give yourself a competitive advantage.

Conducting a SWOT analysis of your business is actually kind of fun. It won’t take much time and it encourages you to think about your business in a whole new way. When you want to assess the overall success of your business you need to use more of a qualitative than quantitative approach to measuring success. Not just in terms of profitability but also in the context of a holistic evaluation of the short and long term growth of your business. Carrying out regular reviews will greatly improve your confidence levels when you see just how in control you can be to most effectively administer change and measure the overall success of your business.

The Business Minder can help 'Take Care Of Business' for you with a business health check using SWOT. S.W.O.T. is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

• Strengths - characteristics of your business that give it an advantage over others

• Weaknesses - characteristics that place your business at a disadvantage relative to others

• Opportunities - elements that your business could exploit to your advantage

• Threats - elements in the environment that could cause trouble for your business

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your business (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.

Questions to Ask During a SWOT Analysis

I’ve compiled some questions below to help you develop each section of your SWOT analysis. There are certainly other questions you could ask; these are just meant to get you started.

Strengths (internal, positive factors)

Strengths describe the positive attributes, tangible and intangible, internal to your business. They are within your control.

• What do you do well?

• What internal resources do you have? Think about the following:

• Positive attributes of people, such as knowledge, background, education, credentials, network, reputation, or skills.

• Tangible assets of the company, such as capital, credit, existing customers or distribution channels, patents, or technology.

• What advantages do you have over your competition?

• Do you have strong research and development capabilities? Manufacturing facilities?

• What other positive aspects, internal to your business, add value or offer you a competitive advantage?

Weaknesses (internal, negative factors)

Weaknesses are aspects of your business that detract from the value you offer or place you at a competitive disadvantage. You need to enhance these areas in order to compete with your best competitor.

• What factors that are within your control detract from your ability to obtain or maintain a competitive edge?

• What areas need improvement to accomplish your objectives or compete with your strongest competitor?

• What does your business lack (for example, expertise or access to skills or technology)?

• Does your business have limited resources?

• Is your business in a poor location?

Opportunities (external, positive factors)

Opportunities are external attractive factors that represent reasons your business is likely to prosper.

• What opportunities exist in your market or the environment that you can benefit from?

• Is the perception of your business positive?

• Has there been recent market growth or have there been other changes in the market the create an opportunity?

• Is the opportunity ongoing, or is there just a window for it? In other words, how critical is your timing?

Threats (external, negative factors)

Threats include external factors beyond your control that could place your strategy, or the business itself, at risk. You have no control over these, but you may benefit by having contingency plans to address them if they should occur.

• Who are your existing or potential competitors?

• What factors beyond your control could place your business at risk?

• Are there challenges created by an unfavorable trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits?

• What situations might threaten your marketing efforts?

• Has there been a significant change in supplier prices or the availability of raw materials?

• What about shifts in consumer behavior, the economy, or government regulations that could reduce your sales?

• Has a new product or technology been introduced that makes your products, equipment, or services obsolete?

Look at the strengths you identified, and then come up with ways to use those strengths to maximise the opportunities. Then, look at how those same strengths can be used to minimise the threats you identified.

Continuing this process, use the opportunities you identified to develop strategies that will minimise the weaknesses or avoid the threats.

Its not unusual for a business to have some type of weakness. In order to transform them into strengths, it may be helpful to identify those weaknesses first. If you’re unaware of where you’re missing the mark, it may be hard to find opportunity for growth. But when you identify your weakness and turn it into a strength, you may be able to improve your service and put yourself in an advantageous position with regard to your competition. Your business can improve operations and profits with outside expertise like The Business Minder. The Business Minder operates in locations throughout Asia with clients in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.