Assessing the Situation

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a powerful technique used to understand a region’s strengths and weaknesses and to look at the opportunities and threats a region faces in an attempt to identify business opportunities. If you do not have a firm understanding of what your community is capable of and the challenges it faces, you will have little success in attracting new business opportunities.

The role that the film commissioner plays as an economic development professional: if you want to build your region as a film location, you need to demonstrate your commitment to the new industry. In order to attract new businesses opportunities, your area must be perceived as film-friendly and have a competitive advantage.

Not only can a SWOT analysis uncover opportunities for your community, it can help you realize the weaknesses of your region in attracting film-related businesses and minimize inappropriate activities by eliminating the “threats” you might not otherwise know about.

Strengths:
What advantages does your region have in terms of film opportunities? What do you do better than anyone else? What unique or low-cost resources do you have access to? What do people in your market see as your strengths?

Weaknesses:
What could you improve? What should you avoid? What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses? Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you do not see? Are your competitors doing anything better than you?

Opportunities:
Where are the potential opportunities available to you? What interesting trends are you aware of? Does your area have a special quality that could build a film industry?

Threats:
What obstacles do you face? What is your competition doing? Are the required specifications for the industry changing? Is changing technology threatening your community’ s position?

An excellent way to demonstrate the result is a SWOT matrix. An example can be found below:

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