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Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Company

Satisfactory Essays

Parnell (2014) states that the first step in formulating a strategy is to recognize the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a tool known as SWOT (p. 247). Strengths and weaknesses, refer to elements within a firm and are used to measure a firm in comparison to its rivals, whereas opportunities and threats describe elements outside of the firm that influence the firm’s operations (Parnell, 2014, p. 247). Human resources, organizational resources, and physical resources are the internal areas that would fall under a firm’s strengths or weaknesses, while a PEST analysis can provide information on opportunities and threats that exist for the firm (Parnell, 2014, p. 248). PEST is a tool used to analyze outside forces that impact the firms within an industry, is an acronym that stands for political, economic, social, and technological (Parnell, 2014, p. 53). According to Parnell (2014), political forces refer to legislation, court decision, or taxes (p. 54). Economic forces, according Parnell (2014), include recessions, interest rates, and inflation (p. 63). Social changes, according to Parnell (2014), are trends, tradition, or values related to society, religion, or culture (p. 79). Technological changes refer to advances in knowledge, equipment, and processes in which firms are able to be more efficient, effective, and accurate (Parnell, 2014, p. 90). The list of the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are listed below.

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