The SWOT analysis is employed to identify the potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to and of a business venture, or any organizational effort. It exists to provide a means of both assessing potential success and addressing those issues challenging such success.
The strengths of Chicago’s “Dreamy Desserts” include: the consistent popularity of sweet goods with the public, and particularly in an urban market; the items as generating a range of pricing suitable to virtually all customers; a commitment to high quality which adds appeal to the consumer; a further commitment to ethically address customer desires and fair practices; completely fair employment and compensation practices, also reflecting ethics; and a full investment by the owners in establishing the business as an asset to the community.
3. A weakness may be identified in the increasing public concern regarding fats and sugars, typically amplified in cosmopolitan areas like Chicago. Another weakness is the inevitability of limited capital able to support minimal business only for a certain period.
An opportunity exists for “Dreamy Desserts” to establish a strong identity as a unique and “personal” bakery, one removed from mass production and serving as an extension of the community. A further opportunity derives from the limited size of the business; small, it may adapt more easily to shifts in the dessert market and accommodate more individual requests. The limited size also translates to the bakery’s requiring less capital to survive during slow periods.
Threats include competition from larger businesses able to sell the goods at lower prices, as well as the risk inherent in opening any new and small business. There is as well the threat that, as indicated by the weaknesses, the market for such goods may reduce to the extent severely harming potentials for success, due to trends discouraging sweets.