One fundamental business practice we learned in class was performing SWOT analyses for marketplace planning. Looking at the objective, internal influences, and external influences, we can determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of any business venture. Based on this analysis, we can make an informed decision on the correct path to take. My group and I performed a SWOT analysis analyzing the potential marketplace created by trade between post-Columbian traders and the Inca empire. Naturally, hindsight is 20/20, so we were well aware of weaknesses and threats that were unknown to the Inca at the time of the conquest. Despite this bias, we did our best to objectively analyze the cultures, trade goods, and leadership that would impact the trade.
Our greatest strength was that our group worked well together – many class activities are done in groups, so by the time we worked on the SWOT analysis, we already had an established rapport with one another. Among our weaknesses was our lack of unbiased information about the Inca empire, as most everything we know about the Incas were written by the Europeans as they tore through the civilization. As the strongest group, we had the opportunity to perform the best analysis and write the best paper, but we were ultimately threatened by the technical requirements of the final paper that restricted our creativity and group synergy.
We later received the fair and valid feedback that our SWOT analysis was the best, but our paper was the least consumable due to its lack of organization and forced language. Just as the Incans were unaware of their greatest threats, our group was unaware of our greatest threat – a group member’s spouse that edited the paper and negated our group’s natural strengths.