SWOT: Look at Your Facts in the Mirror
According to weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats, you can reanalyze yourself and your business setting. This section exactly talks about you.
In the first part, see what capabilities and strengths you have in comparison to your competitors. If you don't have any comparative advantage, identify your competitors' methods and select better ones. In the second part, make a list of your current weaknesses. The third part is to see what opportunities are offered in the market through which you can use your strengths and cover your weaknesses. The last part is the market threats. One of these threats is that a new technology enters the market and affects your work on many levels; you may purchase machinery which becomes obsolete in five years due to this technology.
One of the points I always mention is that you need to look at your facts in the mirror, because if you don't see your facts and weaknesses, these issues get you in big trouble more than 90% of the time. Some of these troubles may even make you close down your business. Instead of landing in hot water later on, think about it while crafting the business plan. You need to turn the threats into opportunities.
Assess the general economic status of the country where your business is located, and check the currency's status. Check the laws and the issue of technology in your targeted business. You can use assessment forms to evaluate and score each item; for example, the current industry status is scored 90 out of 100, or the economic status 50 out of 100. The sum of the scores turns into a criterion for the following decisions.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors of your business, but opportunities and threats are ambient factors on which you usually have no control. Make the best of opportunities and overcome the threats using your strengths.