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GLB 300 - Gateway to Global Business

Assignment #3:  S.W.O.T.  Analysis

Librarian:  Carolyn Johnson  •  Spring 2002

A S.W.O.T. analysis examines a company within the context of its industry and its environments:

• STRENGTHS, competitive advantages of the company
• WEAKNESSES, internal constraints of the company
• OPPORTUNITIES, favorable conditions of the industry and other external environments
• THREATS, adverse or potentially adverse conditions of the industry and other external environments

This assignment requires you to focus your S.W.O.T. analysis in order to answer a specific question:  whether a corporate goal should be to increase sales revenue by 10% each year for the next five years.
 

Review your company's strengths and weaknesses:
 

Read your company's profile in these sources.  Look for issues (strengths and weaknesses) that are mentioned and repeated.  Which ones would impact your decision on whether or not to increase sales revenue?

 

Hoover's Online	ASU West campus only
FISOnline (Moody's) Annual reports	ASU campus or PPP accounts
Standard & Poor's Net Advantage Look at Corporations Records and Stock Reports	ASU West campus only
Value Line Investment Survey Company, industry outlook and sales revenues from previous years	HG 4915 .V32 West Resv
Investment brokerage reports about your company Available in General Business File. Search for company name>Click on the entry that says "Read about this company">Click on  Investment Reports	ASU campus or PPP accounts
International Directory of Company Histories  Use index in latest volume, read history and any updates	HD 2721 .I63 West Ref
Market Share / Brands	See Company Marketing Information

Study your company's financial  statements in these sources.  Look at figures over time.  Compare with those of competitors and the industry averages.  What data would impact your decisions on whether or not to increase sales revenue?

 

Global Access	ASU campus or PPP accounts
FISonline (Moody's)	ASU campus or PPP accounts
Standard & Poor's Net Advantage	ASU West campus only
Value Line Investment Survey	HG 4915 .V32 West Resv
Annual reports of your company  (available in FISonline (Moody's))	ASU campus or PPP accounts
Industry Averages	See Industry Financial Ratios
EdgarScan	edgarscan.pwcglobal.com/servlets/edgarscan

• To fill in details and to find the most recent information, read journal and newspaper articles.   Search these databases using your company name and specific topic(s) as your keywords.  Keywords can come from terms used in the profiles and reports above.

For professional and trade journals:

ABI Inform	ASU campus and off-campus
Business & Industry	ASU campus and off-campus
General Business File	ASU campus or PPP accounts

 For business newspapers:

Business Newsbank	ASU campus or PPP accounts
Wall St. Journal	ASU campus or PPP accounts
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe	ASU campus or PPP accounts

• You are looking for economic, political, legal, regulatory, competitive, technological, social and cultural factors, but not all of these are relevant to every industry at one time.

• Read your industry's profile in these sources.  Look for issues (opportunities and threats) that are mentioned and repeated.  Which ones would impact your decision on whether or not to increase sales revenue?

Standard & Poor's Industry Survey	ASU West campus only
Value Line Investment Survey See latest industry analysis.  Also, in the Summary and Index  look at the Timeliness Rank of Industries. This ranking shows if there is a lot of interest from Wall Street in stocks in your industry (a clue to opportunities and threats that you need to uncover).	HG 4915 .V32 West Resv

• Find statistics about your industry or its environment in these sources.  Look at figures over time.  What data would impact your decisions on whether or not to increase sales revenue?

 

Statistical Universe (search in Abstracts, not Power Tables)	ASU campus or PPP accounts
Global Market Information Database (Look at  U.S. consumption of your product and/or consumption in established foreign markets)	ASU West campus only
Economic Indicators (S&P Industry Survey tells which ones affect the industry)	US Department of Commerce www.doc.gov or HC101.A186 West Ref (monthly)
Business Statistics of the United States	HC 101 .B89x West Ref

• To follow up on any regulatory limitations mentioned in the industry surveys, search the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.  Instructions are given on the CFR home page at http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/

• To fill in details and to find the most recent information, read journal and newspaper articles.   Use the sources  described above.

Suggested strategy:

• Do the research outlined above, paying attention to information that would affect your company's sales revenue.
• Organize the information by writing brief notes about your company and industry on small sheets of paper (like Post-It Notes).
• Sort the notes into whatever groups arise from the data (e.g., demand, marketing, customers, brands, retail, wholesale, e-commerce, etc.)
• Analyze each group.  SWOT information is all relative to the context of the topic.  Does the information indicate a company strength or weakness? Or is the infomation about opportunities or threats to the entire industry?
• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are all interrelated.  Your company's response to an industry or environmental threat might be a strength; its failure to take advantage of an opportunity might be a weakness.
• You must identify at least two strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• Now analyze the issues you have gathered in each of the four areas and determine which are the most important relative to the question about increasing sales revenue.
• Answer these questions:
• How can the strengths be maximized?
• How can weaknesses be resolved or minimized?
• What opportunities exist to expand markets and products?
• What threats exist to limit expansion and growth?
• You may need to go back to some of the sources above to obtain additional information as you become more focused on these issues.

Contact Business Librarian:   Carolyn Johnson
 

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