Essay --

When operating a business it is essential that a business analyses where it stand in a market in the present moment as they are then able to grasp at possible enhancements which could be made in order to successfully improve their products or services. It is also important that a business is able keep up with today’s always changing laws and legislations which through the use of the information they are able to adjust to such changes. SWOT analysis is a method used by organisations to help them analysis, evaluate and take into account different factors within and outside the organisations which can have an influence on their product. SWOT stands for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It enables businesses to clearly form a logical point of view on a products marketing state. For instance using my business plan to re-launch the Zune I can see that the strength and weaknesses of the business would be factors that are internal such as cost production, quality and pricing. While the opportunities and threats would be the external relating to factors such as competitors, audience, trends and politics. The table below illustrates how SWOT would apply to my business plan: Strength (Internal) The strengths are the advantages that the company has which enable it to operate with little or no problems. In the case of Microsoft one advantage is that it has been in the market for a long time and has a wide experience in marketing. Its reputation is also another strength as it is a well known brand name therefore customers are more likely to prefer their products as they will expect a high quality product. The main strength that Microsoft has is its financial position since the company is worth billions of pounds, this will... ...control in the short-run a good example being minimum wage in the UK which the company has no control over, however the company can respond to that change by shifting its major operations in UK to a country like China where minimum wages are not as high compared to the UK wage regulations. That response would help reduce production cost. Boston matrix helped businesses in assessing when to invest largely in prolonging their products for example at a star category more funds are needed to remain in the market where both market share and market growth are at their peak. If not properly checked it could fall into the cow cash category. It is also found that the product life cycle concept assist businesses in knowing at what stage the product stands. Therefore the firm is able to know when to invest in order to extend product’s life or rather to avoid decline stage.