Case Study: The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute

From the case study (The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, 1992) the SWOT analysis (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2010, p227-8) gathers information about the internal characteristics of the organization, which is its strengths and weaknesses and the external market conditions such as its opportunities and threats.

In reading the case study and looking at the internal strengths I examined what the organization does well (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2010, p228). The case study tells us that the two brothers, Ed and Colin Powell own the Fitness Factory, located in the Town Square Mall which sells sports shoes and clothing (The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, 1992, p1). The first strength of owning this store is that none of the other stores

The first threat is from Sports Experts which was located upstairs in the same building as The Fitness Factory; this nationally franchised store was a branch operation of a Comer Brook firm that held the Newfoundland franchise and hired a former employee of B&B Sports as the local manager (The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, 1992, p3). The store offered a full line of sporting equipment, hard goods and soft goods, but the brothers did not believe the manager or the sales staff were capable of offering expert assistance with the selection of goods (The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, 1992, p3) and this was their contingency. The second threat is from B&B Sports which has been in operation for over 15 years, and until 1983 had been the only sports store in town which carried a full line of athletic hard goods such as hockey equipment, softball and baseball equipment and equipment for the hunting and fishing enthusiast, however, the store did not have a large selection of athletic shoes and clothing (The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, 1992, p3) so this was their contingency. The third and final threat is from Sportstop which is located in a stand-alone location in Windsor; Sportstop has 1,000 square feet of floor space, was recently opened by a local businessperson and offered a variety of goods similar to that proposed by Athlete’s Warehouse; again it had no salesperson capable of offering expert assistance with the purchase of running shoes and Colin also believed that the store was poorly located and thus would not provide much competition (The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, 1992, p3) so this was their