This activity is designed to help the students build the necessary framework that will result in a marketing plan. Students will choose a consumer product that will be the basis of the marketing plan (pick a product that you will use throughout your studies). As the relevant chapters are covered in class, students are given some class time to do these activities, which will be directly related to their final product, the marketing plan. Including these activities has dramatically improved the quality of the final products Exercise 1: Analyzing Strengths and Weaknesses For this exercise, you are to refer to the consumer product you have chosen for your marketing plan based on your company. As managers, we will be conducting a SWOT analysis to understand what we are good at, what we can improve upon, how the company can seize opportunities to grow, and evaluate possible threats. While there is no one singular correct way to conduct a SWOT analysis, some questions you may want to contemplate include: . What are the benefits of your product? Are any of these benefits offered by your competitors? . Is there anything special about your product? . Do you enjoy the favor of your customer? Or do they favor one of your competitors? . List your company's experience, expertise, know-how, financial resources, human resources, suppliers, etc . The above analysis will give you some ideas about the Strengths and Weaknesses your company/product is likely to face. Also state how you are planning to take advantage of these strengths. Try to match your strengths with your opportunities. Further, is there any way you can turn some of the above weaknesses into strengths and if not, what are you going to do to minimize their impact? Analyzing Opportunities and Threats For this exercise, you are to refer to the consumer product you have chosen for your marketing plan. Which impacts (positive and negative), if any, do you expect the following factors to have on both your product and company? Some things that you may want to consider include: Social factors: . The changing role of families and working women