SWOT Analysis - Doing The Research
There are multiple courses in the SBA curriculum (undergrad and grad) that
require a SWOT analysis. If you are currently enrolled in a course where you
have been assigned, individually or in a group) to do a SWOT analysis you will
find that the Gutman Library has good research resources to help you gather the
necessary information about your company, its competitors, and the industry.
SWOT stands for: Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The goal is to
thoroughly research a company - and the industry in which it operates - to
identify and analyze all of the SWOT elements. Gutman Library's electronic
business databases can provide access to the information needed for the SWOT
analysis. You can examine a
one-page
guide to SWOT that includes information on the library databases that help
with the analysis,
A good starting point is found in the EBSCO Business Source
Premier database. It offers a SWOT report that can help identify some of the
company's SWOT factors. Along the report isn't sufficient but it can give you
some ideas about what types of information you'll need to find elsewhere.
Business Source Premier - A database provided as part of the EBSCOHost
system, BSP provides access to the full text of thousands of business
publications, including the Harvard Business Review and some other top
journals in the sub-disciplines of business.
Here are some quick tips. First, when you search by a company
name it is always a good idea to change the search index from "default" to "CO
Company Entity". That helps to assure the articles are primarily about the
company. While BSP can be scrolled for articles, it is more efficient to explore
by result category. In the illustration below links to some of the categories
helpful to company and industry research are highlighted with red arrows. These
categories are typically available for public companies. They may not be
available for private firms, especially those that are small and without
national business interest (e.g., an architecture firm based in a Philadelphia
suburb).
Click here for screenshot >
Below is a partial screenshot from a SWOT Analysis report for Wal-Mart. Please
note that the full text of the report is available but it is in PDF format. Just
click on the link to get to the full text report.
The EBSCO SWOT report is a good start but you'll want to be doing more
research on the company and industry. Consult our additional pages on company
and industry research for help.
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