A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by companies to identify strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This article outlines the key steps needed to complete a SWOT analysis, providing an example for three huge brand businesses that have different goals, McDonald's, Apple, and Gymshark. We use the acronym 'SWOT' throughout this article

- please refer to the glossary below if you are not familiar with these terms...

Glossary of terms used in SWOT analysis:

S - Strengths

- internal factors within a company that help it to succeed.

W - Weaknesses

- internal factors within a company that hinders its success.

O - Opportunities

– external factors (usually involving a competitor's weakness) that serve to aid the organization.

T - Threats

– external factors (also usually involving competitors' weaknesses) that threaten the organization's performance and existence...

This SWOT analysis example provides you with an opportunity to try this tool for yourself: please go here if you would like to download the template of our complete SWOT analysis example....

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SWOT analysis for McDonald

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Strength:

• Famous brand, all over the world
• Good image of the young generation (healthy food)
• Employees with a good attitude and more than 1.5 million of them in the world
• Good financial situation, growing business(Revenue: 4.47bil, EPS: 0.96, 2.8% dividend yield, P/E: 19.6x)
• Different branches of business (retail and restaurants)
  

Weakness:

• Failure in China market (turnover: 40mil, operating income: 600k)
• Slow down of sales in Europe (8.2% growth vs 9.1% prev.)
• Higher costs of the food (Food, labor cost up)
  

Opportunities:

• Markets in India and Vietnam are still not well developed and there are many opportunities to grow there
• Opportunity for improvement in Asia China market(40mil turnover is too low)
• Take advantage of the situation when competitor's sales are decreasing

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Threats:

• Global crisis might impact McDonald sales negatively (entire financial sector was affected by it)
• Increasing operations prices lower profits
• Slow economy influenced by a higher unemployment rate will also affect McDonald's
• Lack of new and quality products will make our competitors gain more market share

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SWOT analysis for Apple

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Strength:

• High-end product image
• Brand name and image recognition worldwide
• Apple's own retail chain
• Designing and producing of own products

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Weakness:

• No longer a market leader in MP3 players, smartphones, or laptops
• Currently unable to produce a competitive tablet PC
• Declining market importance of iPod and iTunes Store

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Strongest Competitor in the MP3 Players Market – Android & Apple. The two companies have competing products for every aspect of the market and are constantly competing with each other by launching new products regularly. As well as the android operating system developed by Google’s android business; its OS is free to use while it generates revenue from advertising displayed on the Android home screen.

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However, this fact has not been enough for android mobile phone sales to compete with companies like Apple and Nokia which both offer products that people can afford.

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Opportunities:

• Expand into the Chinese and Indian markets
• Capture a bigger market share for tablets
• Develop and produce an innovative iPod Touch to fight against similar products produced by competitors, such as Samsung’s Galaxy line of products.
• Opportunities:
• Capitalise on the high-end smartphone market
• Attain more customers in China

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Threats:

• Apple faces threats from direct competition that offer cheaper products with improved features. Such as Nokia who is developing new touch screen phones. This will appear a much stronger competitor than android. Apple may face further problems if they do not produce any new products or make any attempts to improve their current product range. Although they should try to compete with companies like Nokia

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SWOT analysis for Gymshark

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Strength:

• Gymshark is well known
• Has loyal and involved customers that regularly post reviews on their own
• Clear pricing structure, with free delivery options.

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Weakness:

• Brand awareness in the UK is still low compared to competitors
• Lack of international presence

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Opportunities:

• * Increasing brand awareness outside the UK market within European markets with a heavy tourist population
• * Expand into the online marketplace as an e-commerce store for clothing (similar to ASOS)

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Threats:

• Larger companies entering the market
• Global economic downturn
• Increased unemployment due to increase in labor automation

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I hope this article would bring you clarity on how the top brands use SWOT analysis  in their business operations. By identifying the internal and external factors within your SWOT, you can develop strategies to strengthen your brand position in this competitive business world. SWOT analysis is best paired up with competitive analysis for your business and brand and here is an article to help you: Competitive Analysis (Free Template)