The Business Club at Elk College

Our VP of Marketing just learned the Business Club at Elk College (BCEB) is hosting the State Conference of Business Clubs on April 9 – 11, 2018 at the Central Downtown Campus in Dallas, Texas. Jack Morton director of the club has requested an Information System to register, monitor and house participants for the conference. BCEB has requested through the Director of Computer Systems Support that (You), one of our Marketing officers, investigate and recommend an Information Systems for these tasks.

Background Information

The BCEB is the local chapter affiliated with the state organization which will Conduct and coordinate the conference. The primary need will be to register the estimated 250 students from 14 schools which are part of this Business Clubs organization. The students will be participating in one of four areas; interviewing skills, business presentations, financial planning or research, and development. Some of the schools have requested the registration can be handled online to eliminate tracking forms. Each school will have a faculty representative who will be responsible for their students.

The Old Downtown Inn will be the base hotel for the faculty and students while in Dallas. Manager, Jill Thomas, has worked with the school previously on other conferences. Jill calls and sends emails that she prefers handling the room reservations in a paperless manner. As host of the conference, Jack Morton will need to be able to locate any student or faculty representatives at any time while in session between 8am and 6pm, during all 3 days. The registration system will also be used to schedule students into their events and also any special trips during the conference.

Business SWOT Analysis

What makes SWOT particularly powerful is that, with a little thought, it can help you uncover opportunities that you are well-placed to exploit. And by understanding the weaknesses of your business, you can manage and eliminate threats that would otherwise catch you unawares. More than this, by looking at yourself and your competitors using the SWOT framework, you can start to craft a strategy that helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors, so that you can compete successfully in your market.

How to Use the Tool

Originated by Albert S. Humphrey in the 1960s, the tool is as useful now as it was then. You can use it in two ways – as a simple icebreaker helping people get together to "kick off" strategy formulation, or in a more sophisticated way as a serious strategy tool.

Tip: Strengths and weaknesses are often internal to your organization, while opportunities and threats generally relate to external factors. For this reason, SWOT is sometimes called Internal-External Analysis and the SWOT Matrix is sometimes called an IE Matrix. To help you to carry out your analysis, download and print off our free worksheet, and write down answers to the following questions.

What advantages does your organization have? What do you do better than anyone else? What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others can't? What do people in your market see as your strengths? What factors mean that you "get the sale"?What is your organization's Unique Selling Proposition(USP)?Consider your strengths from both an internal perspective, and from the point of view of your customers and people in your market. Also, if you're having any difficulty identifying strengths, try writing down a list of your organization's characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths!

When looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors. For example, if all of your competitors provide high quality products, then a high quality production process is not a strength in your organization's market, it's a necessity.

What could you improve? What should you avoid? What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses? What factors lose you sales? Again, consider this from an internal and external perspective: Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you don't see? Are your competitors doing any better than you? It's best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

What good opportunities can you spot? What interesting trends are you aware of? Useful opportunities can come from such things as: Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale. Changes in government policy related to your field. Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on. Local events.