Then we get to the dreaded SWOT analysis that every student and manager in the world knows and I've got to be careful on the video but I will tell you that if you look at this I might as well tell you what that mnemonic means, it means scientific wild ass guess, that’s what it means. Having said it, please forgive me for using that dreadful word but most SWOT analysis I have ever seen in my long life have been complete nonsense. Because they look like this ladies and gentlemen, you’ve seen them strengths and weaknesses opportunities and threats. And I can tell you I can write anybody’s threats down anywhere in the world without even knowing who you are.
First to it I’d put down is the weather, the weather is always on there and then you get competitors they are always on there, and you get changing technology that’s on there, then you get regulation, then you get deregulation, then you get the Koreans don’t you and guess what's on the other side the opportunity side you get the same things. Except the Koreans know we’ll make it the opportunity side do they. And you get vapid things up there like good products and weaknesses, prices too high. It is very much like saying my head’s in the oven, my feet’s in the fridge and averagely quite comfortable.
You cannot possibly do that just like you can't do a CSI study, customer satisfaction in this on varied consumers or users. You’ve got to get them a segment and say now we’ll do a SWOT analysis on the segment or we’ll a SWOT analysis or a costumer satisfaction index of it on group costumers with the all similar needs.
Otherwise you end up averaging don’t you? And that’s SWOT are useless in the name, and everybody I know I mean you wouldn’t believe that she takes this stuff in some business schools. The facts that we teach it, we encourage people to do averages and it is a complete nonsense, believe me. And I spent a lot of my life abroad working for the big companies and if I happened to be in a hotel on my own what I do, sad, I wander around the corridors because in every hotel and every city and every country in the world they run in company seminars and workshops. And in the syndicate rooms you get the flips charts and they’ve all got these on.
They’ve all got the crucifix on, SWOT analysis no one says the same thing. But usually at the bottom it says actions, improve communications or something vapid like that. but they really had a lovely time writing it and nobody does anything different. Because it's pointless isn't it? So if you go to what SWOT analysis should be, you may not be able to see this but this is a segment of the market.
Now you cannot do this if you haven't done your segmentation, to segment of the market. It's a specific group with the same more similar needs isn't. You can then say what factors these people are taking to consideration when they decide to buy from you or any of your competitors. And it will be different by segment and the weights out of a 100 will be different, you might find that in one particular segment, the price segment 10% shall we say of the total market you might find a price accounts for 60% of that purchase in that small segment.
And another you might find it something to do with product efficacy what it might be to do is serve it but don’t write vapid words like that down because service could mean anything from answering the phone in five seconds to one time in full. Now when I do this with companies I can tell you all the years I've been doing it, companies really when they're honest, they do know the answers to this questions if they're honest. They know the answers to the questions.
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