Use SWOT to Analyse Your Business Start-up

By John K Lester

Avoid Mistakes When Starting Your New Business by Using SWOT Analysis. This article shows you how.

When I got up this morning I decided to start a new business venture in a field that I have worked as manager for over 16 years. I decided to start a medical transport company.

Before I start this new business venture I must learn from the mistakes I made from my last business venture and that was a lack of planning.

The first tool I decided to use to help with my business planning is a SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is an acronym that stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. It creates a visual picture of internal factors (strength and weakness) and external factors (opportunities and threats) that can affect your business.

SWOT analysis allows you to see where you stand in your current business and help you to develop a plan to move you closer to success.

The way I developed my SWOT analysis is to draw four boxes on my dry erase board with one box for Strength, one for weakness, one for opportunities and one for threats.

I then brainstorm starting with strength and list all my strengths in the medical transport business. I then repeated this for each of the other boxes.

Once I was done brainstorming I would go over the list and add or delete any item that doesn't belong.

Once I complete my list I start brain storming of ways to use my strength and opportunities to lessen my weakness and threats in my business. Because you will never eliminate all your weakness and threats I brainstorm on possible plan of action on how to deal with threats to my business if they occur.

Well its time to get to work in developing my SWOT analysis so check back in a couple of days to see what I can up with. Developing a business plan and following it help eliminate a lot of problems and headaches. 

About the Author

John Lester is a business owner with over 16 years of experience in business and management. Info: http://www.lesterscarpet.net.