Competitive Strategy: PESTEL, SWOT and Porter Forces in Business

Running Head: Competitive Strategy
Competitive STrategy
PESTEL, SWOT and Porter Forces in Business

Competitive Strategy
An organization’s strategy is defined with the help of various tools that are used in business.
Some of the tools that are used are PESTEL, SWOT, Porter’s five forces, STEER etc. All
these techniques help in the strategic planning which defines the growth of the organization
in future. The formal consideration of using these techniques are the three questions: As to
what the company does, it deals with whom and how it excels. There is another question of
how the company deals with the competitors. These tools are important to make any kind of
business strategy as it helps in shaping up the structure of the organization. This essay
focusses on the PESTEL, SWOT and Porter five forces tools and their details as to how they
help the organization is discussed.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is one the very effective tools that is used in every other organization. It
helps the company understand its Strength, weakness, opportunities and threats. SWOT
analysis objective is to provide the judgements that are structured in any of the processes of
the company. While the strengths and weakness is considered to be the internal part of the
company, the opportunities and threats are the external part of the organization (Osita, et al.,
2014).
Strengths: When the strengths of the company are measured, these are the questions which a
company should keep in mind.
 Advantages that the organization has.
 How is the company different from the others?
 What low cost resources do which others can’t.
 What people take as the strength of the company?
 How the company can do its sale?
 USP of the company.
Weaknesses:
 What are the things for improvement?
 What should be avoided by the company?
 What are the weaknesses which people see?
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Competitive Strategy
 How is company losing sales?
Opportunities:
 Opportunities that the company can spot.
 The trends which are recently in.
The opportunities which can be useful are:
 The technology changes in the market and in sales.
 Government policy changes if any.
 Social pattern changes, population and lifestyle changes.
 Events that are locally happening.
Threats:
 Obstacles that the company faces.
 Competitors work.
 Is the quality of other products changing?
 Technology changes which might threaten the positioning of the company.
 Any debts or cash flow obstacles?
 Weakness which can be a threat to the business (Ommani, 2011).
PESTEL analysis
PESTEL analysis helps in determining the environment in which the company does its
business. It is related to the external environment. These factors are Political, economic,
social, technological, environmental and legal. All these factors are analysed to see the
market growth or decline in a very specific field (Gupta, 2013).
Political Factors: Political factors always include regulations made by the government like
laws made on employment or the tax structure. If the company is starting then it should be
aware of all the political factors around it.
Economic Factors: Economic factors affects the power of purchasing of the company and the
capital cost. The economic factors will help the company to produce products that will help
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