SWOT Analysis

• SWOT Analysis, is a tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a venture.

• It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective.

• The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and sorts of situations in business and organizations.organizations.

• SWOTSWOT analysis is a tool for auditing analysis is a tool for auditing an organization and its environment. an organization and its environment. It is the first stage of planning and It is the first stage of planning and helps marketers to focus on key helps marketers to focus on key issues. issues.

SWOT stands for

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors.

Opportunities and threats are external factors.

Creative Use of SWOTs

How can we Use each Strength? How can we Stop each Weakness? How can we Exploit each Opportunity? How can we Defend against each

Threat?

The aim of any SWOT analysis To identify the key internal and external

factors that are important to achieving the objective.

SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories:

Internal factors – The strengths and weaknesses internal to the organization.

External factors – The opportunities and threats presented by the external environment

Use of SWOT Analysis

The usefulness of SWOT analysis is not limited to profit-seeking organizations.

SWOT analysis may be used in any decision-making situation when a desired end-state (objective) has been defined. Examples include: governmental units, and individuals.

SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive

Sompal Singh Shastri, Vice-Chairman of State Planning Commission of Madhya Pradesh, has called for SWOT (strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats) analysis of Indian agriculture.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF ORGANIC

AGRICULTURE -AFRICAN COUNTRIES

Strengths

Indigenous farming systems Large labour force National organic movements Low cost of production Availability of technologies for organic production Agro-bio diversity of Africa Strongly motivated and committed organic sector

WEAKNESSES

Poor image marketing Lack of awareness of benefits of organic agriculture Education and extension system oriented towards conventional

agriculture Institutional weaknesses such as certification Lack of resources Lack of added value Lack of reliable data and information on organic agriculture Poor local market opportunities and infrastructure Small quantities & irregular supply limit market opportunities Focus on high value crops Some crops are very difficult to produce e.g. tomatoes Trust gap between exporting companies and farmers Availability of clean and appropriate seeds (horticultural crops) Donor dependency

OPPORTUNITIES

Availability of uncontaminated land Increasing interest in organic agriculture Increasing global demand for organic produce Increasing local awareness of benefits of organic foods Provides answers to environment concerns (climate

change). Increasing support from international communities Common mark and standard (East African organic

mark) Governmental support in policy programmes for

organic agriculture Urban and peri urban agriculture Capital accumulation

THREATS

Push for GMOs and AgrochemicalsMarket threats e.g. Food miles Incoherent government policiesPressure from commercial forces to lower

standards of organic agriculture International competition

Study by Adewale (2005) on Trinidad Study by Adewale (2005) on Trinidad National Extension ServicesNational Extension Services

Strengths Strengths

• Highly trained staff 18• Information technology 10• Strong farmer organisation 5• Regional collaboration 2• Youth programme 2• Public sector mode 2• Decentralized structure 1• Farmer field schools 1• Focus on commodity 1• Farmer incentive programme 1• Subject matter specialist 1

Weakness Weakness

• Inadequate funding 7• Poor agricultural policy 7• Poor incentive/ pay 5• Poor infrastructure• Decentralized training hampers field work 4• Poor communication and time lag in implementation 4• Inadequate personnel 3• Poor access road 3• Poor research or extension linkage 2• Poor farmer incentive 2• Poor technology 1• High cost of Advanced training 1

OpportunitiesOpportunities

• Youth programme 9• Use of IT to link rural, regional knowledge centers 7• Build capacity of farmer organizations 3• Training 3 • Regional collaboration 2• Focus on non traditional commodity 2• Crop insurance 2• New clientele 1• Include NGO public sector collaboration 1• Expand farmer field school 1

Threats Threats

• Loss of personnel to private sector 8• Diminishing clientele base 8• Low government priority for agriculture 7• Pests and diseases 3• Chemical company 3• Aging extension worker 2• Globalization and free trade 2• Poor programme to strengthen organizations 1• National programme 1• Youth lack interest in agriculture 1

Human capital of highly trained professional staff ranked as the number one strength of the extension service. Also poor pay and incentives were expressed as weakness

High ranking was assigned for use of IT. The perspective of immense opportunity of utilizing IT as a tool for extension service delivery is found to be significant.

Problems with basic SWOT analysis can be addressed using a more critical POWER SWOT

POWER isan acronym for • Personal experience, • Order, • Weighting, • Emphasize detail, and • Rank and prioritize.

P = Personal experience

How do you the marketing manger fit in relation with the SWOT analysis?

You bring your experiences, skills, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs to the audit. Your perception or simple gut feeling will impact the SWOT.

O = Order - strengths or weaknesses, opportunities or threats.

Often marketing managers will inadvertently reverse opportunities and strengths, and threats and weaknesses. This is because the line between internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats is sometimes difficult to spot.

For example, in relation to global warming and climate change, one could mistake environmentalism as a threat rather than a potential opportunity.

W = Weighting.

Too often elements of a SWOT analysis are not weighted. Naturally some points will be more controversial than others. So weight the factors.

One way would be to use percentages e.g. Threat A = 10%, Threat B = 70%, and Threat C = 20% (they total 100%).

E = Emphasize detail.

Detail, reasoning and justification are often omitted from the SWOT analysis. What one tends to find is that the analysis contains lists of single words.

R = Rank and prioritize. Once detail has been added, and factors have

been reviewed for weighting, you can then progress to give the SWOT analysis some strategic meaning i.e. you can begin to select those factors that will most greatly influence your marketing strategy albeit a mix of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

You rank them highest to lowest, and then prioritize those with the highest rank e.g. Where Opportunity C = 60%, Opportunity A = 25%, and Opportunity B = 10% - your marketing plan would address Opportunity C first, and Opportunity B last.

The PEST analysis

is a useful tool for understanding market growth or decline, and as such the position, potential and direction for a business.

A PEST analysis is a business measurement tool.

PESTPEST

is an acronym for • Political, • Economic, • Social and • Technological factors, which are used to

assess the market for a business or organizational unit.

PEST analysis

• Business and strategic planning, • Marketing planning, • Business and product development

and• Research reports.