As a business owner, you're constantly looking for ways to improve your company's performance and maximize profitability. However, with so many factors to consider, it can be challenging to know where to focus your efforts. One of the most important steps you can take is to identify your company's strengths and weaknesses. Taking the time to honestly identify and analyze your business strengths and weaknesses can help you make more informed decisions, develop effective growth strategies, and stay ahead of your competition.
What are business strengths?
Your business strengths are areas in which your business demonstrates excellence. They can help your company achieve its objectives, perform well in the market, and gain a competitive advantage over your rivals. Identifying and leveraging the strengths of your company is crucial for an organization's long-term success.
Company strengths examples
- Motivated, decisive, and unified company leadership
- A strong company culture where trust, collaboration, training, and coaching flourish
- A skilled and experienced workforce that retains quality employees
- A clear strategic plan with a regular schedule for reviewing and updating the plan
- Innovative products or services in your market
- Efficient operations and optimized use of labor, materials, and time
- Well-documented technology systems and business processes with accurate data
- Exemplary customer service that creates strong customer relationships, brand loyalty, and referrals
- A well-documented sales process with quality sales strategy and training
- A strong online presence and digital marketing strategies
What are business weaknesses?
Your business weaknesses are areas in which your company struggles. They can hinder company performance, growth, and success.
Company weaknesses examples
- Weak, indecisive company leadership
- Fragile, fractured, or toxic company culture
- A moderate or high rate of employee attrition and low morale
- Lack of a strategic plan
- Slower to market than competitors
- Sluggish operations with high waste of labor, materials, and/or time
- Undocumented systems or unclear business processes
- Poor customer service and/or inaction on customer feedback or negative reviews
- Lack of a customer relationship management system
- Limited visibility into or inaccurate financial data
- A sales process that is undocumented, out of date, or only known by a handful of people
- Outdated technology or slow adoption of new technologies
The risks of ignoring business weaknesses
All companies should conduct a comprehensive analysis of their business strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, they can identify areas of excellence and capitalize on them, building on their strengths and increasing their effectiveness. Companies should also address areas of weakness and devise strategies to mitigate them.
Failing to address weakness can lead to negative consequences – even severe ones in the long term. Weaknesses can reduce worker productivity, lower the quality of products or services, increase costs, and decrease company profits. A business that ignores weaknesses may struggle to keep up with changing market trends, customer needs, or technological advancements. Consequently, the business could lose market share when customers switch to competitors that offer more innovative solutions.
In extreme cases, failure to address weaknesses can result in your business closing. This is particularly true for small businesses, as they often lack the resources and resilience to withstand sustained periods of poor performance.
How to identify business strengths and weaknesses
We've established that companies must regularly assess their strengths and weaknesses and take action to boost strengths and mitigate weaknesses to remain competitive and profitable. But how do you identify your company's strengths and weaknesses in the first place?
Conduct a SWOT analysis
A SWOT analysis is one popular tool many businesses use to examine their internal and external environments and identify factors that contribute to success or hinder performance. This approach looks at your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT).
To identify strengths, you might examine your company's unique selling points, any strong customer relationships, effective marketing strategies, or skilled employees. Scrutinize your financial performance and brand reputation too.
To identify weaknesses, analyze any low customer retention rates, inefficient processes, outdated technology, or poor management practices.
Downside of a SWOT analysis
You've worked hard to build your business to where it is today. When it comes to honestly evaluating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you may lack objectivity if you conduct a SWOT analysis yourself.
Our biases can cause us to overemphasize strengths, disregard weaknesses, downplay potential threats, and overestimate opportunities. If you conduct a SWOT analysis by yourself, you're limited to your own perspective – and blind spots. That lack of diversity of perspective can limit your ability to identify all the factors that contribute to your business's success or impede its progress. Additionally, you may not know the full impact of your interpretation of factors.
For example, suppose a company manufactures and sells two products to customers (Product A and Product B). The company charges $10,000 and $6,000 for Product A and Product B, respectively. Company management may think the sale of Product A is a strength and an opportunity for their business, and consequently they want to expand production of this product. But perhaps the cost to manufacture Product A is more expensive than the cost to manufacture Product B, thus producing lower margins and limiting opportunities to grow their bottom line. So, in the end, it's actually more beneficial to expand production of Product B – a conclusion that company management may have come to on their own over time, but perhaps only after significant losses had already occurred.
If you're thinking of conducting a SWOT analysis, consider seeking the help of external business or financial consultants. You should also consider involving team members who represent various departments to gain a more objective and comprehensive view of your business.
Analyze your financial statements
One way to determine financial strengths and weaknesses of your company is to analyze your financial statements. Or, ask your CPA to go over them in detail with you.
Studying your balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows can help you assess your company's financial health and identify areas that need improvement. Look at financial ratios, such as gross profit margin, net profit margin, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and debt-to-equity to deepen your understanding of your business.
For example, a high gross profit margin indicates that your company is earning more than it is spending on production costs, which is a strength. On the other hand, a low net profit margin or negative cash flow indicates that your company may be spending more than it is earning, which is a weakness.
Gather feedback from employees
Your employees are on the front lines of your business and have direct experience with your company's operations, processes, and culture. They can provide insights into areas that are working well and areas that need improvement, such as communication, leadership, teamwork, customer service, and employee engagement.
You can gather feedback through surveys, interviews, focus groups, or suggestion boxes. When gathering feedback, make sure to ask open-ended questions that allow your employees to provide detailed and honest responses.
If employees consistently report low morale or lack of communication, this may indicate a business weakness that needs to be mitigated. On the other hand, if employees consistently report high levels of satisfaction with their job or the company culture, this could indicate a strength that your business can build upon.
Monitor customer complaints
If you're not already monitoring customer complaints, start now. Track the frequency of complaints and any common themes or recurring issues about a specific company product, service, or policy. When customers complain, it could indicate a weakness that needs to be improved.
By tracking complaints, you can also stay ahead of potential issues before they become larger problems. If you address complaints promptly, you can prevent negative reviews, retain customers, and improve the overall customer experience over time, which will help your business succeed.
Benchmark against your competitors
Another way you can determine some of your business strengths and weaknesses is to benchmark your company against your competitors. You may think your business has strong customer service, a prominent marketing strategy, efficient internal processes, and brand differentiation — but examining your competitors could reveal as-yet-unknown strengths and weaknesses.
Conduct a competitive analysis by identifying your key competitors and analyzing their performance in areas such as market share, pricing, product or service features, and customer satisfaction. Examine their websites, social media, and online reviews. Are their websites easy to navigate? What kind of online reviews do they have?
You could also examine large company leaders in your industry and benchmark against their strategies and best practices. Your CPA likely works with several clients in similar industries and may be able to provide additional insights to help develop key benchmarks. Additionally, if you were to engage a business advisor to help with this project, they could provide expertise, guidance, and support through the process.
Use our free business assessment tool
Delap offers a simple solution that can help you identify your business strengths and weaknesses: our free Growth and Profit Solutions (GPS) Business Diagnostic tool.
This business assessment tool is designed to provide you with a high-level analysis of your company's performance, including your strategic capability and sales, marketing, and operations processes. By using our tool, you'll gain valuable insights into your business, helping you identify areas where you can improve efficiency, cut costs, and increase profitability.
Why use our free business diagnostic tool? You can expect:
1. Improved decision-making: With a comprehensive understanding of your company's performance, you'll be better equipped to make informed decisions about how to grow and develop your business.
2. Enhanced financial management: Our tool will help you identify areas where you may be overspending, allowing you to streamline your budget and maximize profitability.
3. Increased competitiveness: By identifying areas of weakness in your business, you'll be better equipped to compete in your industry and stay ahead of the curve.
But perhaps the biggest benefit of our business assessment tool is that it allows us to further our relationship as your business advisor. By analyzing your company's performance, we'll be able to provide you with personalized recommendations for improving your business. We'll work with you to develop a customized growth and profitability plan, and we'll provide ongoing support and guidance to help you achieve your goals.
About Delap
As one of Oregon's largest locally owned accounting and financial services firms, Delap delivers innovative and proactive financial solutions to businesses, business owners, and wealthy individuals and families.
Our team of business advisors is committed to helping you succeed. Whether you're looking to increase revenue, reduce costs, or improve efficiency, we're here to help. Take advantage of our free Growth and Profit Solutions Business Diagnostic tool and schedule a meeting with a member of our Business Advisory team to go through the results. It's a simple, yet powerful, way to gain valuable insights into your business and take it to the next level.
