Starbucks strengths and weaknesses analysis
The purpose of this assignment is to analyze a company’s strengths and weaknesses in order to recommend feasible value-enhancing alternatives.
Consider the publicly traded company your CLC group analyzed in the Environmental and Industry Analysis assignment. In a paper of 1,000-1,200 words, discuss potential growth opportunities and strategies for your selected company and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each opportunity.
Conduct a SWOT analysis for your selected company and discuss your findings. What advantages does your company have over its competition? What opportunities exist in the industry from which your company can benefit? Who is your company’s competition, and what types of risks might they pose? What weak areas could your company improve to compete with its strongest competitors?
Identify strategic alternatives that create value for the company. Which ones are focused on internal growth and what do they offer to the company? What are the drawbacks of these strategies? Which ones are focused on external growth and what do they offer the company? What are the drawbacks of these strategies?
How would you use a decision matrix to identify the leading alternative? Explain how you determined the values used to distinguish between each option. What about the matrix, if anything, may be limiting in its use value to an analyst or decision maker?
What factors might inhibit the success of the optimal strategic alternative identified? How can the issues you identified be addressed and corrected?
Growing an organization is not always about increasing the size of the firm. If expansion is not the main focus, what other elements lend themselves to growth of the firm? How might each be achieved?
A SWOT analysis is an incredibly simple, yet powerful tool to help you develop your business strategy, whether you’re building a startup or guiding an existing company.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your company—things that you have some control over and can change. Examples include who is on your team, your patents and intellectual property, and your location.
Opportunities and threats are external—things that are going on outside your company, in the larger market. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change them. Examples include competitors, prices of raw materials, and customer shopping trends.
A SWOT analysis organizes your top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats into an organized list and is usually presented in a simple two-by-two grid. Go ahead and download our free template if you just want to dive right in and get started.
When you take the time to do a SWOT analysis, you’ll be armed with a solid strategy for prioritizing the work that you need to do to grow your business.
You may think that you already know everything that you need to do to succeed, but a SWOT analysis will force you to look at your business in new ways and from new directions. You’ll look at your strengths and weaknesses, and how you can leverage those to take advantage of the opportunities and threats that exist in your market.
For a SWOT analysis to be effective, company founders and leaders need to be deeply involved. This isn’t a task that can be delegated to others.
But, company leadership shouldn’t do the work on their own, either. For best results, you’ll want to gather a group of people who have different perspectives on the company. Select people who can represent different aspects of your company, from sales and customer service to marketing and product development. Everyone should have a seat at the table.
Innovative companies even look outside their own internal ranks when they perform a SWOT analysis and get input from customers to add their unique voice to the mix.
If you’re starting or running a business on your own, you can still do a SWOT analysis. Recruit additional points of view from friends who know a little about your business, your accountant, or even vendors and suppliers. The key is to have different points of view.
Existing businesses can use a SWOT analysis to assess their current situation and determine a strategy to move forward. But, remember that things are constantly changing and you’ll want to reassess your strategy, starting with a new SWOT analysis every six to 12 months.
For startups, a SWOT analysis is part of the business planning process. It’ll help codify a strategy so that you start off on the right foot and know the direction that you plan to go.