SWOTT analysis for business strategy and planning

PAWS SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis is a comprehensive analysis and review of the organizational dynamic, inclusive of the internal and external environmental analysis. The internal analysis is a function of the internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The effectiveness of the analysis ostensibly reveals the level to where the organization can be identified, relative to industry competition. Prior to engaging into the SWOT, a brief literature review is included to embolden the thought process regarding the analysis of the strategic landscape for Pets Assisting With Students (PAWS).

However, there have been addendums to the methodology inherent to the effective practice of conducting a SWOT analysis. The strategic change includes the focus to the resources-based SWOT analysis that does analyze the resource structure of the firm as a function of the internal and external environment, relative to the market share of the organization and the total available market within the industry.

Literature Review

According to Valentin (2001), "Resource-based SWOT analysis alleviates shortcomings of traditional SWOT analysis not by eliminating checklists, but by focusing on systemic causal issues contemporary strategic management and marketing theory, especially the resource-based view of the firm (e.g., Wernerfelt 1984; Conner 1991; Amit and Schoemaker 1993; Peteraf 1993; Hunt 2000). However, it also draws notably from two complementary frameworks, Porter's (1979, 1980) well-known competitive forces paradigm and Brandenburger and Nalebuff's value net (1995, 1996)." (Valentin, 2001)

According to Valentin (2001), "From a resource-based view every firm is a unique bundle of resources that determines which external circumstances afford opportunities and which pose threats. Further, comparative advantages and disadvantages in resources are tantamount to strengths and weaknesses, respectively, that engender cost and differentiation advantages or disadvantages in competitive product markets (Day and Wensley 1988; Porter 1980, 1991; Hunt 2000)." (Valentin, 2001)

External Forces & Trends

Legal/Regulatory Environment

The market for a not-for-profit that has a business model similar to PAWS is indeed facilitated by current regulatory and political favoritism that seeks to enable the troubled youth. According to Newman (2000), "The first thing children can do is to be responsible pet owners themselves, says Rosemary Ficken, animal control supervisor for the City of St. Louis Animal Regulation Center. "Kids need to give their own pets lots of love and attention and make sure they always have enough food and fresh water, have a collar and ID tags and are spayed or neutered," says Rosemary Ficken." (Newman, 2000)

Additionally, according Newman (2000), "Start an animal protection club at your school or in your neighborhood: Look for stray or injured pets and wildlife and report them to your local human society, animal-control organization or other appropriate group." (Newman, 2000) Indeed, the environmental analysis has clearly established PAWS as a relevant non-profit business model that does have 'competition' in the market.

The regulatory environment is favorable to the operation of PAWS subject to the local, state, and federal constraint. Indeed, the lack of prohibitive regulation to limit the operations of PAWS is in fact the opposite. There are many tax benefits available to organizations such as PAWS that seek to make a social contribution by enabling at-risk youth to yield a better and more productive life. There is no identifiable restriction that will inherently limit the mission, vision, and goals of PAWS subject to the realization of its underlying cause.

Social Forces

An example of a communal farm with regard to the psychosocial benefit of establishing a pet-based relationship is provided by Dunlap & Johnson (2010), "This ethnography explores the competing concepts of community that are deployed within the context of a communal farm. Resident of the Farm articulate oppositional concepts of community that are based on familial and instrumental relationships. The concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are utilized to better understand the manner in which these discourses manifest themselves in the lived experiences of Farm residents. The contradictory nature of these conceptualizations suggests that the concept of community cannot be treated as a monolithic reality within scholarly inquiry." (Dunlap, Johnson, 2010)

The social forces underlying the development and success of PAWS are critical to the success of the organization. PAWS is a social organization geared to engaging the youth such that pets are seen a socially viable and relevant intermediary to link the often troubled and distant personality of an independent youth such that socially, the mission and vision becomes acceptable to the broader society and is appealing to the market to which the organization wishes to service.

Environmental

The environmental framework to which PAWS is subject to as an operating environment is indeed conducive to facilitate the growth of PAWS mission, vision, and the successful completion of organizational goals. An environmental scan shows that there is not a much competition in many regional markets with regard to decreasing market share for PAWS. Therefore, the organization has the potential to effectuate change across all major and minor markets to which there is an increasing amount of at-risk youth.

Without compromising the available resources of the organization, the ideology inherent to the operation of PAWS enables a growth strategy relative to the result of the environmental analysis. Donations to the non-profit will enable a greater share of resources to the firm subject to reporting standards that describe and detail the impact of the program in all markets of operation with specific case studies that detail the benefits of implementing the PAWS program in each region or city.

Internal Forces and Trends Consideration

Strategy

The strategy PAWS has identified to engage the market is a function of the requisite needs assessment that assesses the needs of the target market, in this case the at-risk youth, and of the tenable pets to which each at-risk youth will identify to a subsequent pet. Additionally, the program does identify the likelihood of a youth to be unable to host a pet in their personal home and/or quarters and therefore the PAWS program has enabled a part-time association with the pet at a venue that provides interaction and fun within a supervised and public environment.

The strategy does link the main tenets of the program, the client, the resource, and the management as a symbiotic nexus to coordinate the activities of the organization subject to the successful outcome of its mission. Perhaps the strategy does need to further engage the overall long-term goal to include a follow-up and a subjective analysis of the success of the program relative to each participant. To better serve clients in the future, the identification of the process from start to finish is necessary. This is also known as a comprehensive performance assessment.

Leadership

Given the leadership of the organization is ostensibly looking to provide leadership to the youth subject to the engagement of the program, the leadership is a function of the ability for the program to successfully undergo full implementation as well as complete the performance assessment, needs analysis, and motivational dynamic to ensure the service is holistic and not solely mechanical.