While diversity is a problem to most organizations, successful corporations learn to manage to their full advantage. By adopting new structure and work practices that are radically different from those traditional minded management, these organizations managed to acquire a competitive advantage in the global market place. The whole purpose of managing diversity is to bring out the best of employees Talent, Abilities, Skills and Knowledge for the benefits of individual employees as well as the well-being of the corporations. When workforce diversity is well managed, no employee in the organization feels disadvantaged.

Business firms are beginning to recognize the power of workforce diversity as a competitive tool. Cascio in his book 'Managing Human Resource: Productivity, Quality of Work life, Profits (published by McGraw Hill in 2006) recommends asking the following questions in order to justify that diversity is, in fact a competitive factor:

* How can diversity help business corporations expand their operation into global market?
* How can diversity help to build and sustain brand equity and improve consumer spending?
* How does workforce diversity enhances an organization's HR strategies?
* How does the diversity element build corporate image among the consumers?
* Does diversity improve operational efficiency?How?

Cascio citing studies done by several researchers, answers each of the above question with examples to make a business case for diversity. In the process of discussing the business case for diversity, the author want the readers to ask an important question – 'What steps can you take as a manager to become more effective in a work environment that is more diverse than ever?”.

Workforce diversity should be seen in terms of age, gender. Race, ethnic composition, religion and nationality. Successful 21st century corporations no longer view diversity as a problematic issue. They view diversity as an opportunity that can be utilized to compete more effectively in the local and global markets.

According to Cascio (2006, p.119) managing diversity means aiming for a 'heterogeneous workforce' that is capable of achieving its potential in a non-discriminatory, fair and just work environment.

What are the reasons for diversity being considered as an important activity in managing the human resources? Cascio lists the following 5 reasons as to why diversity has become an important activity:

* Shift from manufacturing to a service economy
* Globalization
* Innovative business strategies that demands teamwork
* Mergers and Alliances
* Changing labor market conditions

Unlike the jobs in the manufacturing industry, service industry (banking, financial services) job holders need to maintain close and constant contact with their customers. Service industry employees are required to understand the needs and expectations of their customers. With increased customer base that is diverse, no business firm has the luxury to ignore the customer groups. To take full advantage of the opportunity corporations need to bring employees who understand and can relate to the diverse customer base. This is to ensure in the words of Cascio “workforce should mirror their customers”. This enables a smooth operations and more cordial interactions between the business firms and their customers.

Recognizing the limited market locally, more and more corporations look at the global market for sustaining and enhancing the market share. With the Globalization of markets, business corporations should learn how to manage the workforce diversity. Successful corporations try to learn from their colleagues around the world. This will enhance corporate performance. That would not be possible without a system to manage diversity.

In their attempt to cope with the problems and challenges facing their corporations, managers realize the limitations of the traditional forms of organizational structure. The strategies that need to be put in place can no longer be managed by the traditional hierarchy based command and control system. For these strategies to work you need team effort. Teams basically means diverse labor force. Successful team management is about successfully managing workforce diversity. To emphasize the usefulness of teams, Cascio (2006, p.123)quotes the words from Ted Childs, vice president, IBM Global Workforce Diversity: “When a company's vision includes the growing mix of the talent pool and the customer base, then the real argument for diversity is the business case”.

Mergers, acquisitions and alliances are becoming more common then ever before. When two business corporations decide to pool their expertise and other resources following mergers, acquisitions and alliances know the difficulties they will face, if they do not have an effective system in place to make them work together. The cultures of merged companies differ. The strategic partner's way of doing things may be different. The values, beliefs and the norms may not be an 100 per cent match. To avoid culture shock and clash of culture, organizations should put a system in place, so that employees at all level understand and accept their differences, while working towards taking full advantage of diversity that came about following mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliance. Here the focus is on seizing the opportunities arising out of diversity and being proactive in managing the diversity related issues. To make this work, managers at the top level must be convinced of the competitive advantages of workforce diversity.

The labor market is changing rapidly. More women are entering the labor market and they continue to remain in the labor market for longer period of time. Business corporations should adopt appropriate measures to meet the unique needs of the women. Balancing work and life appears to be the main focus, when it comes to managing female workforce. Cascio's Managing Human Resources: productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits lists the following six ways that corporations may adopt to take the interests and well being of their women employees:

* Alternative career paths
* Extended leave
* Flexible work scheduling
* Flexi-time
* Job sharing
* Tele-working

Organizations need to train their employees about diversity and its usefulness to the well being of the corporation. Diversity training is a critical part when managing diversity. According to Cascio (p.124) employees need to 'understand and value' the differences among them. The acceptance of differences in a positive manner is critical if the corporation is keen to enable innovation thorough creative thinking in the workplace.

With the growing uncertainty in the electricity and natural gas prices, and increased awareness of energy conservation, many facilities managers of UK companies are exploring every option to reduce their costs and decrease their impact on the environment.

Until very recently, when it came to energy usage, the primary concern of facilities managers was to solely concentrate on securing the lowest rates for their electricity and gas. But now they are finding growing pressure from upper management to lower costs via conservation and to be more “green” with their decisions.

“In the past everyone just wanted to know who had the cheapest tariffs,” explained Rebecca Smith, Director at Direct Power Associates Ltd. in the United Kingdom. “But now we are getting more and more questions about green energy. Green energy prices are comparable to that of normal “brown” energy, while giving a company a piece of mind that they are having less of a negative impact on the environment. In addition, it reflects positively in the publics’ eye, and this is just the sort of image companies feel they need to portray.”

Energy conservation in another buzz word often heard throughout the market. In response to the growing threat of climate change, the UK government set up a program to help businesses reduce their carbon emissions. “This is real simple one, I’m not sure why more people don’t take advantage of this,” commented Smith. “If your company qualifies, you can receive government funding for energy conservation projects.” Many recommendations do not require capital to implement, and there is a typical 20%-30% site savings potential identified in energy costs and usage.

UK businesses will always be most concerned with the bottom line and keeping costs at a minimum. But with increased chatter regarding climate change and energy conservation, facilities managers are faced with changing their thinking when securing their energy contracts and planning for the future.

Most people consider a business plan as only something a large or formal business needs today, but it isn’t! Anyone in business for themselves and, in reality, many working folk wanting to develop their careers should consider a business plan of their own.

Most only feel a business plan is needed when going into business with someone, or going to the bank to raise finance for a business. This is so untrue because, when all is said and done, a simple business plan is nothing more than a plan or reaffirmation of what you intend doing to achieve your goals in a business.

Business plans need not be a complicated document that only your accountant or a business administrator can put together. It should rather be an outline of what kind of business you want to create and how you plan to create it. If one thinks about that statement, then you will most likely agree that this could really apply to almost anyone’s life too.

However, let’s stick with creating a business plan for any small business and then consider applying it to other areas of your life. A typical business plan would consist of a basic skeleton that could be used as the outline to any other type of plan, such as your own ‘career plan’ and would cover these main points:

1. A summary of your potential business, which could be broken down into the following areas: its objectives, its mission and what will make up its main elements to succeed.

2. A company summary – what you have achieved or know you can offer.

3. Your services or products.

4. Analysis of the potential market in summary form.

5. A summary of your strategy and how you intend to implement it.

6. Management summary – your skills and those involved with you in implementing the plan.

7. Financial Plan – what will be needed in the way of capital to put all this into practice.

Now all you have to do is add the meat to that skeleton and you have a working business plan. Once you have created your business plan then you will be able to go over it in detail and see if, or where, your main weaknesses lie in the plan. If you are not an expert in any of the fields covered above, then talk to someone who knows about that area. For example, discuss the financials with an accountant and the people involved in the financial side of your life.

Once you have the business plan and you (and all the important players) are happy with it, then all you have to do is break down the plan into smaller achievable bits and implement those bits. If you refer to your business plan on a regular basis and continually check you are achieving your targets, then you should reach your goal.

However, if you are not achieving your targets and goals along the way then it is time to revisit the plan and see where you are coming up short - or if you must ‘re-plan’ or call in help on a certain point or in a weak area. This is where your business plan becomes your lifeline. If you need additional capital for example, it is easier going to a bank with an existing business plan and explaining why you need additional funding. You also should then be in a position to show them what you are going to do to solve this problem so that it does not happen in the future.

If you look at the basic outline of the business plan we have given you here, then you will see this could be applied to all kinds of situations in your life - like career plans and goals - and not only as a basic business plan.

Corporate Strategy is the overall Glue that binds the organization together and set the guidance and principles for the rest of the functions... Thus ensuring that they become Strategic in their own right.

What does this “mouthful” of a statement means...?

Marketing, Information technology, HR, Procurement, Sales, Logistics, property and the rest of the functions are tactical in nature till the time the organisation decides to set a “Corporate Strategy” in place. Corporate Strategy to companies is the Grand Strategy to countries.

Both are “not” interchangeable” as companies do not have a “grand Strategy”, they only have Corporate strategy.

For example part of Microsoft corporate mission is to “put a PC on every desk on the planet”, Google Corporate Strategy is “to provide the best contents for its visitors” and so on and so forth.

Microsoft and Google Chiefs set about putting the Corporate Strategy to fulfil this “Higher” mission. Google sets “page rank”, soft sell, response time as critical elements of their corporate strategy.

Microsoft sets their IPR, e-mail, Web search, applications, charities, operating system etc as critical elements of theirs.

The Marketing, IT, Sales, HR departments in the case of Microsoft and Google cannot operate on a strategic level unless they set their respective functions strategies in line with the declared Corporate strategy.

These functions SHOULD not worry about the actual Mission, it is not their job to do so... the Corporate Strategy developed by the Board taken care of this.

Their sole job is to fulfil the corporate strategy. For example the Marketing Strategy cannot be called a Strategy unless it is derived from and essential to their respective Corporate Strategy.

Let’s take a more interesting example to see corporate strategy and its relationship to other strategies within say British Gas Corporation in the UK.

When British Gas was deregulated in 1997 it decided to expand its activities to other services that concerns making people’s life easier.

They created the “motto” of “we take care of the essential”.

Such is a “mission” and “corporate strategy” in the making. Other functions in order to become Strategic must build their own strategy to fit in with this Corporate strategy. British Gas continued to develop its corporate strategy in order to achieve such a mission as “taking care of the essential” .

What they did, was to state the parameters of the corporate strategy as such:

* Helping people in the Homes
* Helping people in the road At Home

what is essential beside Gas were:

1. Electricity
2. Telephones
3. AppliancesPl
4. Pipes and so on

On the Road what is Essential were:

1. Road Side recovery
2. Windscreen replacement
3. Tire replacement

Get the idea?

Other Functions must now set about to build their strategies to fulfill the corporate strategy.

* Information technology must now get ready to create “dual Bills”
* Marketing Department must now reach new audiences for the additional services
* Sales department must now start to create processes and train people on serving multiple customers
* HR must now focus on recruiting people with new skills needed.
* Procurement department must now create new categories to deal with new businesses requirements
* Finance department must now create planes to implement various industry accounting practices.

And so on and so forth...

To summarise... Every "respected" business must have a corporate Strategy to set the direction and the purpose for the rest of the organisation’s functions. No other function within the organisation could ever be called Strategic unless it develops a Strategy that serves the corporate strategy of the organisation. Grand Strategy for Nations works in exactly the same way.

The nation’s assemblies create their mission, build a Grand Strategy and then monitor its various “government departments in creating their own strategies that fits into the Grand Strategy of the nation.

Finally an important note must be put in place regarding the guardians of the Corporate Strategies.

The Chief Executive Offices of the organisation whose sole job is to ensure that all the other main functions of the organisation have the strategy that support the corporate strategy.

How many times we hear about directors being “fired” and replaced, Governments being replaced, Minsters being retired, army generals being deposed and so on and so forth...

Why?

Mostly because the CEO, the Prime Minster or the president of the “Entity” have found them totally ignorant and incompetent in understanding the Corporate Strategy or the Grand Strategy...

but this is another story all together...

About the Author

Osama el-kadi is a Strategist and Motivational Speaker.

Would you like more information on this great subject of Strategy?

People, quite naturally, prefer to do easy things. Easy things are — well, easy. It often seems, when we look at our businesses, that the more things we can make easy, the more profitable the company will be. To a point, this is true. If you are putting more effort than you need to into creating your product or service, the time and effort involved may well be coming right out of your bottom line. Recognizing this, most managers will put plenty of effort into taking effort out of your processes.

But wait — there's a catch. Management is not just about minimizing cost — it's also about maximizing value. Some of the effort involved in your business creates tremendous value for your customers, and chances are you aren't even sure where the greatest value lies.

When companies set out to innovate strategically, they often rush off in the same direction as everyone else. In many industries — especially high-tech industries — this causes markets to mature very quickly as unique specialty items that took tremendous R&D investment become "me-too" commodities. If the innovation is a compelling one that creates real, preferred value for the customer, this commoditization is almost inevitable. The only place this is unlikely to occur is when your competitors — for whatever reason — do not copy your valuable idea.

Let's look at an example of this. For the past several years, AMD and Intel have been slugging it out over the microprocessor market. Intel, with deep pockets and first-mover advantage, decided to define the game in terms of core microprocessor clock speed. This is why, when you buy a computer, you are told that a 2.8 Ghz CPU is better than a 1.5 Ghz CPU. Superficially, this is absolutely true — the faster clock speed on the CPU makes it process program instructions faster. For some time, AMD made the mistake of playing the game as defined by their competitor (almost always a bad move). Recently, however, AMD has departed from classifying their products by clock speed (which is what Intel still does). AMD now wants users to evaluate their products by effective speed rather than clock speed — and, of course, they have helped to create the means for customers to measure effective speed. This is an interesting twist in the history of CPU innovation, because today, AMD chips with slower clock speeds are being pitched against Intel chips based upon testing that is purported to depict the real-life speed of a computer using that chip. There is tremendous debate about the testing of system speeds in the technical press today, which means — to some extent — AMD has moved the game of innovation into the realm of measured effectiveness for the customer, and away from CPU clock speed. Customers, of course, will benefit from this move towards real-world comparisons and away from slavish pursuit of the gigahertz — and AMD is hoping that it has the know-how to keep up with Intel in the redefined race. For us, the most interesting part of this is that we are seeing two excellent competitors investing heavily in markedly different paths of innovation for the very same product.

The concept that competitors might not copy something that is strategically valuable seems absurd on its face. After all, why wouldn't you copy a product that enables a competitor to gain valuable market share, often at higher margins? There are three main reasons why competitors do not copy innovations:

1. They are unable to copy the innovation

2. They choose not to copy the innovation

3. They are prevented from copying the innovation

There is one other situation that occurs frequently, and that is:

4. The competitor copies the innovation weakly because they fail to focus

If your company is seeking ways to innovate, each of these reasons may offer ways to avoid competition and earn a substantial return on your innovations. By understanding each of these, you may be able to identify useful types of innovation that will give you a leg up in the marketplace.

First — and this is one of the best — competitors sometimes are simply unable to copy a new product or service. The reason this is a very good situation should be clear — if you do something valuable for your customers that your competition cannot copy, you have created something that looks an awful lot like a strategic competency, which we all know is practically a license to print money. Unfortunately, this situation is less common than we would like to think. Additionally, we may embark upon a project expecting that our competitors will be unable to copy us only to find out, much to our disappointment, that this is not true. The worst thing about such a disappointment is that it is likely to turn up only after we have spent strategically significant amounts of time and money. However, if you want to avoid this disappointment, there is a key choice you must tend towards in your strategic decision-making: you need to focus your efforts on the hard stuff. The reason that difficulty becomes strategically attractive here is that it increases the likelihood that our competitors, in fact, cannot copy our innovations.

What are the things that will make a competitor completely unable to copy an innovation? In general, these will be technical issues — issues of know-how and capability, quite distinct from intellectual property issues, which are properly dealt with below. Let's take a look at issues that will completely prevent competitors from pursuing an innovation:

1. The competitor does not understand the innovation

2. The competitor does not have the correct equipment or people

3. The competitor cannot afford the investment

4. There is a trick to the innovation that the competitor cannot copy

The first three of these can be related to the others, and — to some extent — they all boil down to resources. With deep pockets, most deficiencies in capability can be eliminated. This is not always the case with the first issue, however — if you don't understand the innovation, you may end up investing in equipment and people that are inappropriate for success with the innovation. It is possible, however, for an intelligent competitor to invest in (1) — understanding, so this is not insurmountable. It is also possible for a competitor to correct (2), by spending to get the right people and the right equipment. The last two issues may be insurmountable. If investment is required, and a competitor cannot get the required capital, that competitor is, for most purposes, shut out of the market.

The fourth issue — the clever trick — is the dream of most entrepreneurs. If there is a clever trick involved, you can maintain a monopoly on the innovation almost indefinitely, or at least until your competitors figure out a way to steal the secret from you. A good example of this was the formula for gunpowder, which was a closely guarded secret for the first decade or so of its use in Europe. Everyone could tell that charcoal and sulfur were involved, but the use of saltpeter, and its proportion in the mix was a secret that took years to leak out, effectively giving the monks who discovered it a monopoly on its manufacture. Thus, while Roger Bacon is credited with the European innovation in the 13th century, the first European use of guns in warfare was not noted until nearly 100 years later.

The second reason why competitors may not copy us is that they choose not to copy. Why would this happen? Basically, competitors are likely to decide against copying good ideas when they think that either (1) the cost is too high, (2) the payoff is too small or (3) they just don't like the idea. Historically, many companies have used high cost as a barrier to entry, and this can work very well if you have deep pockets and your competitors do not. Small perceived payoffs can be just as good a barrier to entry, but it requires that you know something that your competitors don't. And dislike for an idea can also be a powerful barrier to entry. Let's examine how a competitor might reach the conclusion that they should not copy an idea.

First, the cost being too high: naturally, the cost might actually be too high, but this is one we don't want to use, because it would hurt us, too. Much preferred would be that the competitor's perceived cost is too high, while our actual cost is not. There are two key ways to hit this mark: one, choose innovation projects that appear to be expensive at first — and turn out not to be, or two, choose projects where you have some actual cost advantage in the innovation process. Both of these options require that you know a great deal about your product, service or processes — companies that are just dabbling will not likely succeed in either. In addition, the case where there is a real cost barrier to entry can be quite powerful if you have deep pockets and your competitors do not.

The second reason a competitor might decide not to copy your strategic innovation is that they perceive the payoff as being too low. If the actual payoff is low, this is not a very good situation to get into. In some cases, however, the perceived payoff may be much lower than the actual payoff. Some industries are perceived as dull and unrewarding. If you can gain entry into such a business, the perception of low payoff will help you almost as much as if it was real.

You will also find some cases where the low payoff is a reality for the second player in a market. This is often true with simple innovations that create strong brand preference. For example, Domino's Pizza gained tremendous leverage from being the first nationwide pizza chain to advertise delivery. The players that followed them had all of the expense of building a delivery capability, but none of the brand preference that Domino's generated during the years when "Domino's Pizza Delivers" was a distinction.

The final reason a competitor may decide against copying you is one of my favorites. Sometimes, a competitor just doesn't like the direction you are going. The beauty of this is that your competitors effectively leave you with a monopoly by making this choice. This can come about because people have had bad experiences with some kinds of business, or simply because of a gut reaction. For example, after the collapse of the dot.com bubble in 2001, many people assumed that all internet business was inherently unprofitable. This has created an opening for innovators who have developed new models of profitability for internet companies who would have been crowded out during the boom years of heavy internet investing.

The third reason why competitors may not copy us is that they are prevented from copying by someone else. Usually, this is a legal situation (as in the case of a technology covered by patents), but it may be driven by other forces as well. While many companies rely on this tactic in support of their strategic dominance, it has one major flaw: the prevention that makes this tactic effective is outside of your control, and may only be temporary in nature. The very best use for this tactic is to give you a head start on the next innovation, since — at some point — it may be possible to get so far ahead of your competition that they effectively give up on the direction you have taken. Some of the more interesting examples of this kind of prevention lie outside of the classic cases, where there is legal protection of intellectual property. These often occur because of pressure — real or imagined — brought to bear by customers of your competitors. For example, you may sell your products through distributors who are adamantly opposed to direct sales by their suppliers. In such a case, an innovator who starts selling directly to customers ends up taking a risk that competing companies are unwilling to take — the risk of cutting off the distribution channel that makes up most of their sales. In this situation, it is the customer who is preventing the copying — but the results are nearly the same as if you had a patent on direct sales.

So, what can we do to take advantage of understanding the difficulties of copying innovations? Simply put, we must throw as many of these obstacles in the way of our competitors as we can. The chart below is a basic outline of ways to take advantage of these ideas.

Innovation is a great way to differentiate your company and attain higher than average profitability in your business. Too many companies get on an innovation treadmill by improving their offerings in predictable, copyable ways. With a little care, you can innovate strategically, and truly put your company in a position that yields long-term advantage in the marketplace.

"Time is money". We've all heard that, right? But does your company operate that way? Many times, I've seen companies succeed wildly simply because they do things faster than their competitors - usually, a LOT faster. This works simply because all of us, as consumers, would prefer to have whatever we want whenever we want it. In many cases, we are prepared to pay a huge premium to someone who can save us just a little time - sometimes even paying this premium for a product or service of inferior quality.

How can you use this? First, you need to understand the time performance standards of your industry. Do 90% of your competitors turn around a customer order in a week? A day? An hour? Obviously, this can vary a lot, depending on the business you are in. But, whatever that standard is, you need to ask the question, "Are there many customers who would find it valuable to be served in half the time?". Usually - but not always - the answer is yes. In many cases, customers will be willing to pay a premium of 10-20% to get the same product or service in half the time.

It can pay to understand exactly WHY customers will pay a premium to avoid waiting. Is the premium simply to avoid wasting their time? Do they get a lot of rush orders from their customers? Is there a high cost of inventory? Or does a quick turnaround help your customers assure that their products are the most current and salable in a market driven by rapidly changing fashions? Any of these can lead a customer to put a high value on rapid delivery -- but some might lead you to creative solutions that will help you create value for your customers. For example, market research at Disney World indicated that most customers hated waiting in the long lines that form for their most desirable attractions. So, Disney developed the "Fast Pass" system, which allows customers to arrive at their choice of attractions at a pre-determined time, with a minimal wait. In reality, the customer still waits a long time to ride on that attraction -- often an hour or more -- but, because the "Fast Pass" allows him or her to go do something else while waiting, it actually reduces the time spent waiting in line -- which was the customers' main complaint.

Knowing that your customers will pay a premium for faster service is only half the battle. Naturally, you actually have to deliver on this - and make sure the customer knows you deliver. A simple time-flowchart can help you to identify where your customers' time is spent in your operation, and give you some ideas about how to cut that time down. Here are the top five time wasting places I've found in various industries over the years:

1. Credit approval

2. Waiting for engineering or some other operational bottleneck

3. Communicating the order slowly

4. Packaging for delivery

5. Waiting to be delivered

Granted, these are more applicable to products than services, but service examples tend to be very industry-centric (i.e. an airline wastes time in different places from a restaurant). Anyway, try doing a little flowchart of your own operation and see if you can't find some treasure for your customers - chances are, they will be glad to pay you for it!

Using the SWOT Analysis in a practical and effective way is perhaps most of us wanted to achieve. Conducting a SWOT Analysis can be quite a challenging task when you are not so experience. this article is written as an alternative way to conduct a SWOT Analysis. It illustrates the What? When and How? It can be done in a simplistic way.

WHAT IS SWOT ANALYSIS?

S.W.O.T. is an abbreviation for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a situation analytical tool to evaluate a business environment, competitive situation of an organization or even a problem.

Why I called it a situational analysis? Because it evaluate the perception of a user on an organization's internal Strength & Weakness as well as external Opportunities & Threats based on the knowledge of t he user has with the business environment outside the organization.

WHEN TO USE SWOT ANALYSIS?

SWOT Analysis is one of the simple tool used to do a quick analysis about an organization. A full SWOT analysis is normally used as an additional tool to Strategic Planning. Otherwise, it may be used for various other situations. There are cases where the SWOT Analysis is used to determine internal capability only i.e. evaluating the Strengths and Weaknesses. Example, it may be used to plan for new product launching, increase market share, venture into new business, evaluate your own operation capability or use it to solve a problem.

HOW TO USE SWOT ANALYSIS?

Although it is quite easy to use SWOT Analysis, it is rather challenging to master it. You may use it in a team or by yourself. If you use it in a team, then you need to use the brainstorming tool to gather ideas about the four factors of SWOT from the team members. If you do it by yourself, then you are the only one who give all the ideas about the SWOT factors. Whichever approach you take, you would ask what are the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats of an organization or situation you are in. Then list them appropriately as the example below:-

STRENGTHS.

* Strong financial
* skillful workforce
* high quality product and services

WEAKNESSES

* high turnover
* slow in new product design
* bureaucratic management

OPPORTUNITIES

* New market is open up ( e.g. AFTA, WTO )
* New mega project is in the pipe line
* customer is more quality conscious

THREATS

* low entry barrier
* price war
* competitor from AFTA and WTO countries

Tips

1. It should be emphasized that Strength & Weakness are referred to internal factors whereas Opportunities and Threats are referred to External factors.
2. Items identified by SWOT is non factual during the initial use of the tools. As you gain more experience, you should verify the items brainstormed during the SWOT.
3. Although conceptually these two factors are clearly identified, many of my participants use them interchangeably.

In conclusion, SWOT analysis can be conduct in various way. It is important to suit the members in your team in order to maximize their knowledge about the subject. On the other hand, you as a team leader should screen out clearly unrelated items.

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Disclaimer: All rights reserved. This article is written by the author based on his practical application experience. All definitions and interpretation of terminology are his point of view and has it has no intention to conflict with experts in similar topic. The author holds no responsibility for the use of this article in any way.

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