A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique used to help identify the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business before deciding on a new strategy.
The objective is to gather meaningful information in each category that can be used for a competitive advantage.
Here’s a sample of questions you can ask about your event to identify your competitive advantage:
Strengths
- What are our best organizational assets (valuable resources you own or control)?
- What do we do better than other organizations (our unique selling proposition)?
- What are our best event assets?
- What does our event do better than others?
- What do customers/members/competitors say are our event’s strengths?
Weakness
- What does our organization do worse than other organizations or what do other organizations do better than us?
- What elements of our business add little or no value?
- What elements of our events add little or no value?
- What are the most common complaints about our event?
- What do customers/members/competitors say are our event’s weaknesses?
Opportunities
- What current or emerging trends might positively effect our business?
- What current or emerging trends might positively effect our event?
- Is there a need in our industry we’re not meeting, but could?
- Is there an unmet need in our industry that we could meet?
- Is there a gap in the market or a niche we’re not currently targeting, but could?
- Is there something our customers/members are asking for we’re not offering?
- Do our competitor’s events have a weakness we can take advantage of?
Threats
- What current or emerging trends might negatively effect our business?
- What current or emerging trends might negatively effect our event?
- What obstacles does our business face?
- What obstacles does our event face?
- What natural or man-made crisis might threaten our business?
- What natural or man-made crisis might threaten our event?
- What are our competitors doing or planning that could negatively impact us?
- Who is not a current competitor but might be one in the future?
As you can see, a thorough SWOT analysis asks questions about the organization as well as its event. This is because an event is a business-within-a-business. In order for both to thrive, their strategies have to be aligned. If an organization has certain strengths (i.e., marketing), that strength will be reflected in its event. Conversely, if the organization is lacking in certain areas, that weakness will also be reflected in its events. You can’t address one without impacting the other so it’s best to analyze them as a whole.
For more information on how to conduct a SWOT Analysis, click here.
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