# **#1 What is SWOT?** **S – Strength** means what are your business strengths. **W – Weakness** means what is your business weakness. **O – Opportunities** mean what are the opportunities for your business and how you can leverage them. **T – Threats** mean factors that may become hindrances for your business. So, remember build your strengths more and convert your weakness into your strengths. Invest your time in opportunities and monitor the threats because by this you will be able to know how to handle them in the future. # **#2 Factors of SWOT Analysis** - **Internal factors –** They are inside your company. Internal factors can be your employees, top management, and customers. They are your Key Performance Indicators. - **External Factors –** They are outside your business with indirect influence. External factors are there in your industry. They are trends like what is competition in the market. Many agencies make these reports. You can purchase these reports and understand these factors. You can analyse your company’s position only if all these four factors are there. # **#3 What do you achieve from SWOT Analysis?** - Helps in determining how to achieve & explore resources for maximum benefits. - Reduces losses and failures if you come to know what is the weakness in your business by working on those weaknesses. - Improves operations and increased efficiencies. - Helps in keeping an eye over the competition so that you can sustain your current position and keep on climbing the ladders of success. # **#4 How to do SWOT Analysis?** - Make a chart of SWOT Analysis with four boxes - S, W, O, and T. Write each factor in each box. - Do a brainstorming session with your team. Together the entire team will discuss all the above factors. Then make the list of all ideas and suggestions and put them in respective columns of SWOT. - Check how much these points are aligning with the data.  **Example:** Let's understand the SWOT Analysis of the biggest online job portal Naukri.com. ### **1. Strengths:** - First site for searching jobs. - Very good brand recall compared to other job portals. - Indians have accepted it and they use it rigorously. - They have a good market share with the number one position. - Number one ranking on page views, reach, traffic - Clear revenue model - Except for a few services all the services of the company are paid which people purchase and use. - Team is hardworking and they take less time to make their contacts and database. So, they kept on building their strengths and they associated many clients by providing these services. Competitors like Monster.com, Times.com are much behind from them. **_Your strengths only make you unique by which your employees get inspiration and your processes also get strong. Work on the USP of your business._** ### **2. Weakness:**        - **Huge Cost -** Due to high employee strength they have a huge cost. - **Retention -** People don’t stay in the company for long and leave. Time and money invested in their training get wasted. - **Branding -** Employers complain that they don’t get their branding on the website so how will people come to know that who all are associated with Naukri.com. So they have the problem at the website front. If a lean model business has to be made, then there shouldn’t come many difficulties. Cost also had to be controlled along with working on clients' problems also. Basically in this, you are finding here the weakness of your business and how it has to be overcome. ### **3. Opportunity:** - The Internet user is increasing in India with around 550 million numbers now. - Every company is searching for new talent ad people with more talent so the scope of work is high. - Since it’s a digital company so many expenses are saved. - Their other brands like Shiksha.com, Jeevansaathi.com are also generating good traffic. - Hiring for new skills like digital marketing, social media, and online reputation management is increasing. So naukri.com can make a special vertical for this. All these factors are external. So future possibilities, which will exist more and what will diminish completely can be also evaluated. ### **4. Threat:** - **Competition will increase -** The era is of online and many new players are coming with new services. Many websites are doing interviews with their clients and preparing them for interviews. Thus customers are getting value-added services. This makes clients feel that a particular company is much serious about hiring. - **Clients' breaks -** Many websites will break the client and attract towards them. So by analyzing the threats you come to know about the hindrances in Naukri.com in their journey and the threats for which they should be alert. By SWOT analysis, you understand about competition, what the market wants, how you will handle particular challenge can be analysed, etc. # **#5** **From where does this information come?** - **Take the feedback from employees -** Note the points from the brainstorming sessions and discussions of the team. - **Customer Feedback –** What customer is saying, what are their needs and what they want? - **Suppliers –** what suppliers are talking about. - **Industry Trends –** You should know about the trends in the industry. - **Competitor Analysis –** You should always have knowledge about competition. Basically, market research needs to be done which will tell you about your current position. # **#6 SWOT analysis benefit to small businesses** - SWOT analysis tells those facts about the business which you can use for your benefit. You get very deep information with help of SWOT analysis. Many times by this analysis you get direction to think big. - SWOT analysis is not only done for an overview of your business. You can use it in any circumstances. If you are launching an advertisement campaign, exploring possibilities in other markets, or doing trade. It is done everywhere. - You get ready with solutions by SWOT analysis like how to move forward in the world and what needs to be focused gets cleared by this. - You get a lot of clarity on long term budget planning, hiring needs, and growth strategy through SWOT analysis. By conducting SWOT analysis in your business - - Profits increase - Opportunities in the market increase - Become first in your area of work - Improvement happens - Helps to understand the hindrances in the growth of your business - Helps you going in the right direction - Understand your USP and build your brand image - Makes you ready for future challenges