SWOT Analysis
I sat down to write a SWOT Analysis of myself and the findings, though not really surprising, are that my thoughts are now more ordered than earlier. What next? I will mull over the SWOT sheet and then take necessary corrective measures for our business. Now is the time for course correction. Our turnover analysis and study of the past 8-10 years was an eye opener. The challenge before me is about retaining our business. 2019-20 has been particularly harrowing. We may not be alone in our suffering but this thought does not comfort me at all. I will now have to think in much broader terms, at times compromising on our pricing, but never on quality, to ensure that business keeps flowing in from various sources. Over dependence on just one client is doing us a lot of harm. My better half can perhaps be coached to market our company. She is a lot better at this than me. I will coax her to go through my LinkedIn connections and make a list of people we can approach for new business.
At present the list of Weaknesses appears longer than our Strengths. I hope to change this soon. The threats too look ugly and the Opportunities minimal. Opportunities though limited, still exist. They exist in the present business and elsewhere. The key is to find a viable opportunity which would entail minimum capital investment.
If only real life worked according to cliches like "follow your heart". I would probably have stopped our design business a few years ago and had become a full time equity investor. But I have come to realise that I really do not have much of an acumen in this. Although equity investing does interest me, I haven't taken any real efforts to study and learn. I made the fatal mistake of reading 'tips' and investing in companies which Suhas kaka recommended without understanding the rationale. AG from our society had once lectured me about relying on Technical Analysis rather than Fundamentals. He says he has reaped rich dividends (as much as 20-25% each year). These figures should be looked at indulgently as people tend to overstate successes and downplay or outright ignore their failures. But the fact remains than he has managed to only increase his wealth. But before he started full time investing/trading, he was employed with CG and also had a business selling some kind of equipment. I need to think hard whether I would be able to devote at least 2-3 hours everyday to study fundamentals and maybe also technical analysis. Initially I can just invest on paper, fine tune my skills or formulate some technique and then allocate some money. This can be a good side business. So long as I am able to strictly adhere to a stop loss, I think I should be okay.
I will also have to forge partnerships with outside vendors so that we can tap more design, digital and printing jobs. As I said earlier, some tweaking of pricing will keep the gears moving. Sitting idle is never a good idea as it tends to rust the brain and more importantly it makes our people edgy and gives them ideas about looking for opportunities elsewhere.
I still remain positive about the future. We are at least realising that our thinking, mode of working etc. needs to be corrected. We need to align with the changing times. Or else we perish!
At present the list of Weaknesses appears longer than our Strengths. I hope to change this soon. The threats too look ugly and the Opportunities minimal. Opportunities though limited, still exist. They exist in the present business and elsewhere. The key is to find a viable opportunity which would entail minimum capital investment.
If only real life worked according to cliches like "follow your heart". I would probably have stopped our design business a few years ago and had become a full time equity investor. But I have come to realise that I really do not have much of an acumen in this. Although equity investing does interest me, I haven't taken any real efforts to study and learn. I made the fatal mistake of reading 'tips' and investing in companies which Suhas kaka recommended without understanding the rationale. AG from our society had once lectured me about relying on Technical Analysis rather than Fundamentals. He says he has reaped rich dividends (as much as 20-25% each year). These figures should be looked at indulgently as people tend to overstate successes and downplay or outright ignore their failures. But the fact remains than he has managed to only increase his wealth. But before he started full time investing/trading, he was employed with CG and also had a business selling some kind of equipment. I need to think hard whether I would be able to devote at least 2-3 hours everyday to study fundamentals and maybe also technical analysis. Initially I can just invest on paper, fine tune my skills or formulate some technique and then allocate some money. This can be a good side business. So long as I am able to strictly adhere to a stop loss, I think I should be okay.
I will also have to forge partnerships with outside vendors so that we can tap more design, digital and printing jobs. As I said earlier, some tweaking of pricing will keep the gears moving. Sitting idle is never a good idea as it tends to rust the brain and more importantly it makes our people edgy and gives them ideas about looking for opportunities elsewhere.
I still remain positive about the future. We are at least realising that our thinking, mode of working etc. needs to be corrected. We need to align with the changing times. Or else we perish!
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