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.