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Imagine you have a streaming company called Streamare. Now you need to develop some new business strategies so that Streamare can have a higher market share.
How will you make your business plan innovative and creative?
Get to Know the Landscape
Before you start your work, you have to know the landscape of the business you are in. But how? 
One model you'll find helpful in this respect is the SWOT analysis.
"SWOT" stands for:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
SWOT is a handy decision-making tool. By analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses, you gain a deeper understanding of your business. By studying external opportunities and threats, you gain insight into the broader business environment.
Conducting SWOT Analysis
When you draft a SWOT analysis, draw a table that is split into four columns.
In these columns, list essential factors and elements to compare them. Notice that for internal factors like strengths and weaknesses, write elements you can control, while for external factors like opportunities and threats, write things that you can't control.
This SWOT analysis for Streamare gives you an idea of how to do it!
Click the play button on the audio player below to listen to an audio description of the SWOT chart above.
Did you know?
Apart from being regularly used in the business world since the 1960s, SWOT analysis can also be used to assess a person's strengths and weaknesses so that they can get a roadmap for personal growth!
Generating Innovative Ideas
Now, it's time to generate new ideas for the directions you've chosen for your business based on the SWOT analysis.
Photo by Jason Goodman on UnsplashIf you have a team, organize brainstorming sessions where your staff can freely express their ideas and exchange thoughts on how to leverage the identified strengths and opportunities and reduce weaknesses and threats.
Check out this Byte on how to facilitate a creative brainstorming session.
Quiz
Streamare has received feedback from customers complaining that prices are too high. During a brainstorming session, Anna suggests that the company can offer more service options at various price levels. This suggestion is to:
The high price of services is a weakness of the company that needs to be addressed.
Planning Implementation
After the brainstorming session, Mark proposes that it might be a little bit too risky if you all just carry out all these ideas and put Streamare directly into the big market. He suggests that you field test these strategies in specific markets on a smaller scale before they go big to help prevent wasting resources.
You think he is right and you decide to do a field test and gather some feedback. Your team will analyze the feedback carefully, and adapt your strategies accordingly.
Quiz
Which of the following actions can you take as a field test?
By offering a free trial of new services for selected customers, you can test these services on a smaller scale and gather some feedback.
Take Action
Being creative and innovative in establishing new business strategies is an important step in business development. It can often be risky and there are a lot of tasks to complete in the process.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on UnsplashTo help increase your rate of success:
This Byte has been authored by
Zheng Cheng
Teacher
MA