GSP 3201: ENTREPRENEUSHIP |EDUCATION

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strength- internal qualities, capabilities, and core competencies that made the company stands unique.
These can be unique selling propositions, internal resources such as human resources, skilled manpower,
capital, technology, etc. that give a company an edge over the competitors.

Weaknesses: indistinct selling prepositions, internal limitations such as resource limitations, unskilled
manpower, and inadequate capital and technology that weaken the internal qualities, capabilities, and core
competencies of a firm.

Opportunities: positive circumstances, or openings that give a firm a chance for advancement. For
example, burning the importation of price; absence of competition; emerging market, or products.

Threat: negative openings or circumstances that cause harm and adverse effects to the firms. For example
competition, legislation, inflation, and technological changes.

Strengths and weaknesses are concerned with the internal capabilities and core competencies of an entity,
while opportunity and threat are concerned with external forces outside the firm's control.

Tool for Identifying Opportunities and Threats

Political: external forces are driven by government and politics. These include changes in government,
war/conflict, legislation, and other policies that positively or negatively affect the firm.

Economic: external forces are driven by the economic condition of a country. For example, Unemployment,
inflation, tax,

Social: external forces are driven by the beliefs, norms, and values of the society. It also involves
demographic factors such as (age, gender, race, family size), population growth rate, and employment
pattern For example, selling dog meat, and beer in Kano

Technological: external forces are driven by changes in the way of doing things or technological
advancement. It also involves new ways of producing, distributing goods and services, and communicating
with target markets For example, energy usage, new machine or process.

Environmental: external forces are driven by weather, geography, climate change, and health crises. For
example, pollution, carbon footprint

Legal: external forces driven by laws. These include intellectual rights, consumer protection laws,
employees/ occupational safety laws, License

While PESTEL analysis is used to identify significant factors in the environment, SWOT analysis is used to
assess these factors and consider how they might create an opportunity or a threat for the entity.
Equally, it is important to assess competition while conducting a SWOT analysis. These involve analyzing
Porter’s Five Forces model, and whether any of the Five Forces is likely to change in the future. These
forces include industry rivalry, the threat of new entrants, the threat of product substitutes, purchasing
power of the buyer, and purchasing power of the supply.

Differences between Idea and opportunity

Ideas are plans or tough or suggestions about the cause of action, and solutions to problems while
opportunities occur by chance. Equally, an idea is the spark of creativity that gives vision for the product,
while the opportunity is a circumstance in which an idea can be obtained and transformed into business
success.

· Idea is a concept for new products or services, while the opportunity is a situation or market gap that
can be exploited for potential profit.

 The idea is originated from imagination, or thought, while opportunity comes from observations of a
gap in the market.
 The idea is good if it is technically feasible, commercially viable, and has market potential, while
the opportunity is good if there’s growing demand, not too much competition, and it has the
potential to be exploited effectively by the company

The sources and strategies for exploiting business opportunities

The sources of opportunities involve problems, networks, work experience, hobbies, systematic search,
competition, demographic change, etc.

The strategy for responding/exploiting business opportunities involves:

· Listen to your customers

· Observe and track your competitor

· Look at the industry trend and insight

· View the market beyond the current demand

· Develop a business plan

· Secure funding

· Lunch and scale the business

Creativity and innovation involve

The success of any business depends on its creativity and innovation. Creativity and innovation signify
coming up with something new or modifying an existing one. These can be radical or incremental. Radical
innovation is concerned with breakthrough innovation, or a completely new process, product, or market. In
contrast, incremental innovation is concerned with modifying existing products by adding a benefit or
improving the product function.

Most of the recent innovation is incremental in nature.

Innovation process

a. Idea generation

b. Idea screening

c. Concept development

d. Concept validation

e. Product development

f. Product testing

g. Commercialization