The identification of internal and external environment of the club may help us develop a clear strategy. Strategy basically is a plan of action designed to achieve a specific goal. Application of business strategy may be helpful here. The most common analysis that is used to develop a business strategy is SWOT analysis. SWOT means strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are positive features of an internal environment, while opportunities and threats are features of an external environment. For developing the strategy, it is also important that our club exercises honesty in facing both internal and external problems. We need to take a broad approach so that we do not ignore relevant issues or miss anything. We need to examine the past challenges and learn from the mistakes. We also need to seek opinions and the perceptions of other professional managers and coaches so that we use all the available intellectual and material resources.
The following table shows the SWOT analysis of the club:
Strengths
Good management team
Good financial systems and regular audits
Good coaches
Promising club members (especially, the young)
Reputation of the coaches and the club members
Lots of practice time
Availability of training resources (books, CD/DVDs, manuals)
Decent equipment
The coaches are flexible, allowing club members to make suggestions on changing the tactics and game strategies
The availability of devoted transportation bus to allow club members to participate in away games
Availability of devoted volunteers
Weaknesses
Lack of professional team for developing a clear strategy
Funding sources are not diverse, making the availability of sources unstable
Some of the volunteer...
they are reluctant to free the equipment for younger members
Unavailability of the video crew to record games for later review
No succession plans in case coaches retire or resign
Lack of media coverage
Performance goals are relatively modest
Occasional pessimism over tough competition outside
Opportunities
Greater government support
Greater media coverage
Increased interest from donors and sponsors to support school sports
Availability of athletic university scholarships that may attract new members
Greater local community interest due to increased government support
Develop better relations with ping pong and other sports associations
Develop better relations with local sports TV and radio channels
Use of social networking (facebook, twitter) to attract new members, and promote the club in the community
Threats
Tough competition from other clubs
Threat of luring our coaches to other clubs
Threat of luring our club members to other clubs
Increasing popularity of big tennis that lures away community interest from ping pong
Availability of many other sports games for school-aged children
Government support for all school sports which may attract talented youth to other sports
The strategy for the club therefore must be based on this SWOT analysis. In terms of Strengths, our club needs to maintain its internal strengths. But we need also to overcome our internal weaknesses. On the external environment, we need to exploit existing opportunities and avert potential threats. That should be our general strategy.
