Scenario-
- You have been contacted by the major shareholders at General Motors (USA) to provide an accurate and current analysis of their Holden subsidiary.
- Subsidiaries are a common feature of multinational corporations who generally organise their businesses into national and functional subsidiaries
- A subsidiary is a business/organisation that is completely or partly owned (major shareholder) by the parent organisation and thus the parent organisation normally controls the activities and policies of the subsidiary (therefore, Holden is the Australian arm of General Motors).
- So you are working as a consultant to suggest a new (internal, external or partnership) venture, (on an based analysis of the Holden subsidiary) which will create rapid growth.
- The report should be addressed to/written for the shareholders of GM.
Analyse External Environment-
Macro External Environment:
- Environmental factors that indirectly affect the organisation, such as government legislation, demographic and social trends.
- Comprises political, economic, socio--cultural, technological, environmental & legal environmental forces.
SWOT-
- Assess your organization's current position relative to competitors and potential customer needs
- Provides insights into market opportunities, threats and trends to optimize returns on investment
- Reviews your dependence and value attached to your supply chain as well as the sustainable nature of your competitive advantage
- Increases the likelihood of successful new product or service launches, partnerships developments and e?cient outsourcing
1. Identify the strengths
2. Determine the weaknesses
3. Consider the opportunities
4. Locate the threats
5. Create a balance and holistic SWOT analysis
SWOT - Strengths - Internal Environment (now)
Maintain and build these aspects
Generally relates to your resources and capabilities.
Consider:
- What do you do better than anyone else?
- Why should people purchase from you relative to your competitors?
SWOT -- Weaknesses - Internal Environment (now)
Reduce or ideally eradicate
Consider:
- What problems are frequently (re)occuring and possibility losing you sales/members?
- What could you improve that would directly a?ect your business performance?
- What are your ?nancial weaknesses?
- What are your sta? weaknesses relative to your strongest competitor?
SWOT -- Opportunities - External
Environment (future in the local, macro, & micro)
- What changes can you best exploit?
- What are the competitor vulnerabilities that you can attack?
- What new markets could you enter or further penetrate?
SWOT -- Threats - External
Environment (future in the local, macro, & micro)
Consider:
- What external obstacles are you facing or might you face that would a?ect key elements of your business (supply chain, economic downturn)?
- What new legislation might damage current pro?table success?
- What are your sponsors likely to do in the future?
- Could an of your weaknesses or removal of one or more of your strengths threaten your long--term future?
Create a balance & holistic SWOT Analysis-
The SWOT analysis now needs to be holistically considered. This means that balance needs to be created to ensure one quadrant does not dominate the process.
Consider:
- What strategies might we be able to implement to pursue opportunities that align with our strengths? (strengths Vs. opportunities)
- How can we overcome our weaknesses to pursue high--ranked or high--weighted opportunities? (weaknesses Vs. opportunities)
- How can we use out strengths to reduce the risks of our threats? (strengths Vs. threats)
- What mechanisms can we include to reduce the potential impact of our weaknesses, thereby avoiding the susceptibility to out most likely threats? (weaknesses Vs. threats).