IB Business Management SLTopic 8 — The Pre-Released StatementPaper 1Toolkit~10 min read
Bringing SWOT and STEEPLE Into Your Answers
These two tools do different jobs. SWOT looks at the company and asks what it is good at and what could hurt it. STEEPLE looks at the world outside and asks what is changing. Most students can list both. Far fewer can use them inside a paragraph, which is where the marks actually are.
What you need to know
SWOT mixes internal and external: strengths and weaknesses are inside the firm, opportunities and threats are outside it.
A factor is only a strength if it helps this business compete. “It makes concrete” is a fact, not a strength.
You are almost never asked to draw a SWOT. You are asked to use one inside an answer.
ABC’s most interesting feature is that its biggest weakness and biggest opportunity sit side by side: cement emissions and e-waste recycling.
Naming the tool costs four words and earns analysis marks.
SWOT applied to ABC
Four boxes, four items each. Anything you cannot tie to competing is a fact, not a SWOT point.
The commonest SWOT error is putting an external factor in the wrong half. Ask yourself: could ABC change this by making a decision? If yes it is internal. If no it is external.
STEEPLE applied to ABC
STEEPLE is the outside world only. Seven letters, and ABC is unusual in that every single one of them genuinely bites.
The orange word under each letter is your memory hook for ABC. One word is enough to unlock the paragraph.
Letter
The trend
What it means for ABC
Social
People are more worried about pollution, landfill and climate change.
Moving into recycling lets ABC look like part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Technological
New methods recover metals from e-waste using far less energy.
ABC’s room-temperature process is exactly this, and it could give a cost advantage over rivals.
Economic
Energy costs are rising and construction demand follows the economic cycle.
Margins on concrete get squeezed, and gold prices make e-waste revenue unpredictable.
Environmental
Cement is one of the largest industrial sources of CO2.
ABC is criticised for its core product even while its recycling arm cuts landfill waste.
Political
Many governments now promote recycling and the circular economy.
Subsidies or incentives could help fund ABC’s e-waste expansion.
Legal
E-waste handling and cross-border shipment are tightly regulated.
Compliance costs money, but it also pushes out unsafe, cheaper competitors.
Ethical
Quarrying damages landscapes and poor e-waste disposal harms communities.
ABC has to balance profit against responsible use of land, materials and labour.
Using them inside a paragraph
Nobody gets marks for a four-box drawing. You get marks for a sentence like this one:
The shape that scores
name the factor → say which category it sits in → explain the consequence for ABC
So instead of “a threat is regulation”, you write: “Tighter emissions rules are a political and legal threat, because compliance would raise ABC’s cost per tonne of cement at a time when its margins are already under pressure from energy prices.”
Two or three factors, not seven. A STEEPLE answer that marches through every letter is a list. Pick the letters that decide the question and develop them properly. Depth beats coverage every time.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Explain one strength and one weakness of ABC’s position in the e-waste market. [4]
Strength: the point
ABC has a recovery process that works at room temperature rather than by burning circuit boards [1]
Strength: the applicationBecause it uses far less energy, ABC’s cost per tonne should be lower than established recyclers, giving it a technological advantage in a market where competitors are already set up [1]Weakness: the point
ABC has almost no experience in the e-waste industry, having come from concrete [1]
Weakness: the applicationIt has to build supply relationships and handle toxic metals safely, and its one factory can only run at full capacity if it can collect enough discarded electronics [1]4 marksStrength and weakness are both internal. If you had reached for regulation here, you would have answered the wrong question.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Analyse two external factors that could affect ABC’s decision to expand its e-waste business. [6]
Factor 1: legal
Governments are tightening controls on how e-waste is collected, processed and shipped [1]. ABC would face higher compliance and safety costs, though these same rules also squeeze out informal operators who currently take material cheaply [1]
Factor 2: economic
Revenue depends on world prices for gold and copper [1]. If prices fall, ABC could process more tonnes and still earn less, which makes any investment funded by borrowing riskier [1]
Weighing themThe legal factor is largely predictable and can be planned for, while the economic one cannot [1]. So price volatility is the bigger constraint on how fast ABC should expand [1]6 marks: two developed factors plus a comparisonNaming the STEEPLE category takes two words and signals to the examiner exactly what you are doing.
Exam tip
Say the category out loud in your answer. “This is a legal threat” is worth writing.
Test every strength. If a rival could say the same thing, it is not a strength.
Use ABC’s paradox. Cleaning up e-waste while emitting carbon from cement is the richest point in the whole case.
Keep STEEPLE to two or three letters. Developed beats listed.
Opportunities are things that exist, not things ABC has done. The unrecycled e-waste pile is the opportunity; the factory is the response.
Link SWOT to a decision. A SWOT that does not lead anywhere earns knowledge marks and nothing else.
Common mix-up
Putting competitors in weaknesses. Rivals are external, so they are a threat.
Putting ABC’s own factory in opportunities. That is a strength; it already exists.
Confusing environmental with ethical. Environmental is the physical impact; ethical is about right and wrong behaviour.
Drawing the grid instead of arguing. The grid is your planning, not your answer.
Listing all seven STEEPLE letters shallowly. It reads as padding and scores like padding.
Repeating the same idea in two boxes. Each point should earn its place once.
Up next: Bringing the Ansoff Matrix Into Your Answers — the four growth routes open to ABC, and which one it has already taken.
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