Competitive Analysis

What: The Competitive Analysis is a tool to summarize and take inventory of what competitors are offering relative to your product/service/platform.

Why: The competitive analysis helps identify where you stand in the face of competition. You may learn that you have a best practice or competitive differentiator – or you may see best practices elsewhere that you may want to evaluate.

An in-depth analysis of your competitors is important to do periodically, depending on the level of change/innovation in your industry. It is important to stay abreast of changes and update your Fact Book.

Competitor Analysis

Who are your competitors?
Make a list of direct competitors in your space/ industry
Include any entity that has an impact on your target customer, look outside the financial services industry

Rank Competitors
From this list of competitors, rank them in terms of their influence on your target customer. Number them in terms of influence
To validate your analysis, ask yourself: Can I identify each competitor with a direct influence on my target market even if they aren’t doing it the same way I am? If you answer no, revise your list.

Analyze Competition
List your competitive set in order of influence on your target customer
Define the main categories that are most important to your target customer
Score yourself against your competitors
Analyze your competitors so you can define your competitive advantage


Product/ Service Differentiation

How do you differentiate your product/ service?
One effective way to do this is by clearly defining your product strategy. This will shape what you are and what you are not delivering in your product/ service.
The strategy will reflect:

1) The choice of products/ services you offers and the customers you seek to serve
Example: Should Ford introduce an updated model of the Barracuda or introduce a new set of models?

2) Competitive Differentiation. How you compete to attract, win, and retain customers.

Example: Nordstrom’s differentiates itself from the competition based on superior service and breadth of product selection in shoes.

3) The goals you pursue

Example: Should Apple try to be a major participant in every segment of the audio/ stereo industry or aim to be a leader in the small personal player segment?

On the next page, the major levers are identified to help you develop a product/ service strategy.

Gap analysis

Gap analysis is a business assessment tool enabling a company to compare its actual performance with its potential performance. This provides the company with insight to areas which have room for improvement. The process involves determining, documenting and approving the variance between business requirements and current capabilities. Gap analysis naturally flows from benchmarking or other assessments. Once the general expectation of performance in the industry is understood then it is possible to compare that expectation with the level of performance at which the company currently functions. This comparison becomes the gap analysis. Such analysis can be performed at the strategic or operational level of an organization.

'Gap analysis' is a formal study of what a business is doing currently and where it wants to go in the future. It can be conducted in different perspectives as follows:
Organization (e.g. human resources)
Business direction
Business processes
Information technology

Gap analysis provides a foundation for how much effort, in terms of time, money and human resources, is required to have a particular aim achieved (e.g. to turn the salary payment process from paper based to paperless with the use of a system).

Gap Analysis and New Products

The need for totally new products or for additions to existing lines may have emerged from the portfolio analyses, in particular from the use of the Boston Growth Share Matrix. More probably, the need will have emerged from the regular process of following trends in the requirements of consumers. At some point a gap will have emerged between what the existing products offer the consumer and what the consumer demands. That gap has to be filled if the organization is to survive and grow.

To locate such a gap in the market the technique of gap analysis can be used. Thus an examination of what profits are forecast to be for the organization as a whole compared with where the organization (in particular its shareholders) 'wants' those profits to be represents what is called the planning gap: this shows what is needed of new activities in general and of new products in particular.

The planning gap may be divided into four main elements:

Usage Gap

This is the gap between the total potential for the market and the actual current usage by all the consumers in the market. Clearly two figures are needed for this calculation:
*market potential
*existing usage

Market potential

The most difficult estimate to make will probably be that of the total potential available to the whole market, including all segments covered by all competitive brands. It is often achieved by determining the maximum potential individual usage, and extrapolating this by the maximum number of potential consumers. This is inevitably a judgement rather than a scientific extrapolation, but some of the macro-forecasting techniques may assist in making this `guesstimate' more soundly based.
The maximum number of consumers available will usually be determined by market research, but it may sometimes be calculated from demographic data or government statistics. Ultimately there will, of course, be limitations on the number of consumers. For guidance one can look to the numbers using similar products. Alternatively, one can look to what has happened in other countries. It is often suggested that Europe follows patterns set in the USA, but after a time-lag of a decade or so. The increased affluence of all the major Western economies means that such a lag can now be much shorter.

The maximum potential individual usage, or at least the maximum attainable average usage (there will always be a spread of usage across a range of customers), will usually be determined from market research figures. It is important, however, to consider what lies behind such usage.

Existing usage

The existing usage by consumers makes up the total current market, from which market shares, for example, are calculated. It is usually derived from marketing research, most accurately from panel research such as that undertaken by A. C. Nielsen but also from 'ad hoc' work. Sometimes it may be available from figures collected by government departments or industry bodies; however, these are often based on categories which may make sense in bureaucratic terms but are less helpful in marketing terms.

The 'usage gap' is thus:

usage gap = market potential - existing usage

This is an important calculation to make. Many, if not most marketers, accept the 'existing' market size, suitably projected over the timescales of their forecasts, as the boundary for their expansion plans. Although this is often the most realistic assumption, it may sometimes impose an unnecessary limitation on their horizons. The original market for video-recorders was limited to the professional users who could afford the high prices involved. It was only after some time that the technology was extended to the mass market.

In the public sector, where the service providers usually enjoy a `monopoly', the usage gap will probably be the most important factor in the development of the activities. But persuading more `consumers' to take up family benefits, for example, will probably be more important to the relevant government department than opening more local offices.

The usage gap is most important for the brand leaders. If any of these has a significant share of the whole market, say in excess of 30 per cent, it may become worthwhile for the firm to invest in expanding the total market. The same option is not generally open to the minor players, although they may still be able to target profitably specific offerings as market extensions.
All other `gaps' relate to the difference between the organization's existing sales (its market share) and the total sales of the market as a whole. This difference is the share held by competitors. These `gaps' will, therefore, relate to competitive activity.

Distribution Gap

The second level of `gap' is that posed by the limits on the distribution of the product or service. If it is limited to certain geographical regions, as some draught beers are, it cannot expect to make sales in other regions. At the other end of the spectrum, the multinationals may take this to the extremes of globalization. Equally, if the product is limited to certain outlets, just as some categories of widely advertised drugs are limited by law to pharmacies, then other outlets will not be able to sell them. A more likely outcome is that, not being the market leader, a brand will find its overall percentage of distribution limited. The remedy for this is simply to maximize distribution.

Unfortunately, maximizing distribution is not quite as easy as it sounds, except for the obvious market leaders. It is true that additional salesforce effort, backed by suitable sales promotional activities, should be able to increase distribution somewhat, although there will still have to be some balance between the benefits to be gained and the costs to be incurred. But the prime barrier to distribution will probably be the resistance of the distribution chains to stock anything other than the bestsellers. This can partially be overcome in the short term by offering better terms and higher margins, so that the distributors make more on each sale. But the distributors have long since learned that their biggest profits come from concentrating on the main brands. They, above all, live by the 80:20 Rule.

Product Gap

The product gap, which could also be described as the segment or positioning gap, represents that part of the market from which the individual organization is excluded because of product or service characteristics. This may have come about because the market has been segmented and the organization does not have offerings in some segments, or it may be because the positioning of its offering effectively excludes it from certain groups of potential consumers, because there are competitive offerings much better placed in relation to these groups.

This segmentation may well be the result of deliberate policy. Segmentation and positioning are very powerful marketing techniques; but the trade-off, to be set against the improved focus, is that some parts of the market may effectively be put beyond reach. On the other hand, it may frequently be by default; the organization has not thought about its positioning, and has simply let its offerings drift to where they now are.

The product gap is probably the main element of the planning gap in which the organization can have a productive input; hence the emphasis on the importance of correct positioning.

Competitive Gap

What is left represents the gap resulting from the competitive performance. This competitive gap is the share of business achieved among similar products, sold in the same market segment, and with similar distribution patterns - or at least, in any comparison, after such effects have been discounted. Needless to say, it is not a factor in the case of the monopoly provision of services by the public sector.

The competitive gap represents the effects of factors such as price and promotion, both the absolute level and the effectiveness of its messages. It is what marketing is popularly supposed to be about.

Market Gap Analysis

In the type of analysis described above, gaps in the product range are looked for. Another perspective (essentially taking the `product gap' to its logical conclusion) is to look for gaps in the 'market' (in a variation on `product positioning', and using the multidimensional `mapping') which the company could profitably address, regardless of where its current products stand.
Many marketers would, indeed, question the worth of the theoretical gap analysis described earlier. Instead, they would immediately start proactively to pursue a search for a competitive advantage.

What is SWOT analysis? What are the main aspects of SWOT analysis? How to write Good SWOT analysis of a company? Where to find information for SWOT analysis?

Introduction

Environmental opportunities are only potential opportunities unless the organization can utilize resources to take advantage of them and until the strategic leader decides that it is appropriate to pursue the opportunity. It is therefore important to evaluate environment opportunities in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s resources, and in relation to the organization’s resources, and in relation to the organizational culture. Real opportunities exist when there is a close fit between environment, values and resources. An evaluation of an organization’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to environmental opportunities and threats is generally referred to as a SWOT analysis. The following report will look closely into the SWOT’s concept, its main aspects, and criteria for successful and effective SWOT analysis.

Main Aspects of SWOT Analysis

SWOT has a long history as a tool of strategic and marketing analysis. No one knows who first invented SWOT analysis. It has features in strategy textbooks since at least 1972 and can now be found in textbooks on marketing and any other business disciplines. It advocates say that it can be used to gauge the degree of “fit” between the organisation’s strategies and its environment, and to suggest ways in which the organisation can profit from strengths and opportunities and shield itself against weaknesses and threats (Adams, 2005). However, SWOT has come under criticism recently. Because it is so simple, both students and managers have a tendency to use it without a great deal of thought, so that the results are often useless. Another problem is that SWOT, having been conceived in simpler times, does not cope very well with some of the subtler aspects of modern strategic theory, such as trade-offs (De Witt and Meyer, 1998).

Strengths

Determine an organisation’s strong points. This should be from both internal and external customers. A strength is a “resource advantage relative to competitors and the needs of the markets a firm serves or expects to serve” (http://www.css.nccu.edu.tw/mepa/mepa_course/2005/kao/ 20060221_1.ppt#1). It is a distinctive competence when it gives the firm a comparative advantage in the marketplace. Strengths arise from the resources and competencies available to the firm.

Weaknesses

Determine an organisation’s weaknesses, not only from its point of view, but also more importantly, from customers. Although it may be difficult for an organisation to acknowledge its weaknesses it is best to handle the bitter reality without procrastination. A weakness is a “limitation or deficiency in one or more resources or competencies relative to competitors that impedes a firm’s effective performance” (http://gift.postech.ac.kr/admin/bbs/data/summer_session_2004/ Corporate%20Strategy_ver%5B7%5D_final(1).ppt).

Opportunities

Another major factor is to determine how organisations can continue to grow within the marketplace. After all, opportunities are everywhere, such as the changes in technology, government policy, social patterns, and so on. An opportunity is a major situation in a firm’s environment. Key trends are one source of opportunities. Identification of a previously overlooked market segment, changes in competitive or regulatory circumstances, technological changes, and improved buyer or supplier relationships could represent opportunities fro the firm.

Threats

No one likes to think about threats, but we still have to face them, despite the fact that they are external factors that are out of our control, for example, the recent economic slump in Asia. It is vital to be prepared and face threats even during turbulent times. A threat is a major unfavourable situation in a firm’s environment. Threats are key impediments to the firm’s current or desired position. The entrance of new competitors, slow market growth, increased bargaining power of key buyers or suppliers, technological changes, and new or revised regulations could represent threats to a firm’s success.

Because SWOT is such as familiar and comforting tool, many students use it at the start of their analysis. This is a mistake. In order to arrive at a proper SWOT appraisal, other analyses need to be carrier out first.

• Since opportunities and threats mostly arise from the environment, SWOT analysis needs to take account of the results of a full environmental analysis.

• It is impossible to gauge what an organisation’s real strengths are until you have assessed its strategic resources – in fact, strategic resources and strength are the same thing. There is a tendency for students to put down anything vaguely favourable that they can think of about a company as a strength. This temptation needs to be resisted - a strength is not a strength unless it makes a genuine difference to an organisation’s competitiveness. The same is true of weaknesses.

For example, look at Southwest Airlines and Amazon.com. Both companies have important groups of potential customers to whom they offer poor service. Southwest ignores business passengers, and will not accept transfers from other airlines. Amazon makes people wait days to receive books that they can obtain instantly from their neighbourhood bookstores, and pay a delivery charge for the privilege. Surely, these are major threats. Southwest and Amazon have chosen not to give those customers priority. Serving them would divert resources from the firm’s core markets, and dilute service to their main customers. Not serving them is certainly not a weakness; in a paradoxical way, it may be a strength.

The wizardry of SWOT is the matching of specific internal and external factors, which creates a strategic matrix and which makes sense. It is essential to note that the internal factors are within the control of organisation, such as operations, finance, marketing, and other areas. On the contrary, the external factors are out of the organisation’s control, such as political and economic factors, technology, competition, and other areas. The four combinations are called the maxi-maxi (strengths/opportunities), maxi-mini (strengths/threats), mini-maxi (weaknesses/opportunities), and mini-mini (weaknesses/threats). Weihrich (1982) describes the four combinations as follows:

1. Maxi-maxi (S/O). This combination shows the organisation’s strengths and opportunities. In essence, an organisation should strive to maximise its strengths to capitalise on new opportunities.

2. Maxi-mini (S/T). This combination shows the organisation’s strengths in consideration of threats, e.g. from competitors. In essence, an organisation should strive to use its strengths to parry or minimise threats.

3. Mini-maxi (W/O). This combination shows the organisation’s weaknesses in tandem with opportunities. It is an exertion to conquer the organisation’s weaknesses by making the most of any new opportunities.

4. Mini-mini (W/T). This combination shows the organisation’s weaknesses by comparison with the current external threats. This is most definitely defensive strategy, to minimise an organisation’s internal weaknesses and avoid external threats.

How to Write a Good SWOT Analysis

A successfully conducted SWOT involves identifying the following:

• The things an organisation does particularly well (strengths) or badly (weaknesses) at present; • The factors that in the future may give the organisation potential to grow and increase its profits (opportunities) or may make its position weaker (threats). Opportunities and threats normally arise from changes in the environment, but sometimes have their origin inside the organisation – for example, if key machinery or people, functioning very effectively at present, are likely to break down or retire in a few years’ time, that is a threat.

It is important to bear in mind what a SWOT is for. It is intended to summarise a strategic situation, with a view to deciding what the organisation should do next. A SWOT analysis should contain sufficient information for any reader to be able to see why a particular issue counts as a strength, weakness, opportunity or threat, and what the implications are for the firm that you are analysing.

For the same reason, there is no room for equivocation in a SWOT analysis – a factor can be a strength or a weakness, but not both. For example, a firm’s IT system may provide good management reports but poor production control information. It is pointless to put this down as both a strength and a weakness that partially cancel each other out, since manager have only two choices: either they upgrade the system or they do not (Mintzberg, 1990). This means that you need to come to definite answer to the question: On balance, is the IT system a strength or a weakness? Perhaps the lack of good production information is important, in which case the system needs to be upgraded. Perhaps it is vital to maintain the flow of management information, in which case the system should not be touched (Thompson, 2002). SWOT analysis aims to differentiate factors from being bad or good for the company’s performance. In a SWOT analysis, the strengths and weaknesses of resources must be considered in relative and not absolute terms. It is important to consider whether they are being managed effectively as well as efficiently. Resources, therefore, are not strong or weak purely because they exist or do not exist. Rather, their value depends on how they are being managed, controlled and used.

SWOT analyses should only pick out issues that have a substantial effect on a firm’s competitive situation. You should avoid the temptation to put down under “Strengths” almost everything you can think of that is vaguely favourable to the firm, and to classify anything remotely unfavourable as a weakness. It is rare for any firm should be rare, difficult to copy and make a genuine difference to the organisations’ profitability – a strategic resource. A weakness, similarly, is something that affects the organisation’s cost or differentiation advantage. Old-fashioned equipment and authoritarian management styles, for instance, are only weaknesses if they lead to increased costs, poor quality or bad customer service (Thompson, 2002; Adams, 2005).

Lists of strengths and weaknesses should not include factors that are common to every firm in an industry. For example, you could not count “well-known brand” as a strength for a firm in the jeans or cosmetic industries, since many brands are equally famous. Instead of writing that main opportunities of the company are overseas expansion and brand extension, it is crucial to replace it with a broader definition and explanation. The example of a more successful explanation could be: “Eastern European markets, with developing spending power and proven appetite for Western consumer brands, represent opportunity. 25% of existing sales in airport outlets are to customers travelling to these countries”. Another example could involve: “Competing firms have extended brands to cosmetics, spectacles, jeans and stationery. Likely opportunity for this firm to follow suit” (Adams, 2005).

Instead of saying that the threat of a firm is in exchange rate fluctuations, the statements of: “Appreciation of euro versus dollar likely to lead to reduce value of US profits (25% of total)” or “This is a specific threat that affects this firm because of its high proportion of US sales” could be appropriate (De Witt and Meyer, 1998).

In order to write a good SWOT the following criteria must be taken into account:

• Make your points long enough, and include enough detail, to make it plain why a particular factor is important, and why it can be considered as a strength, weakness, opportunity or threat. Include precise evidence, and cite figures, where possible;

• Be a specific as you can about the precise nature of a firm’s strength and weakness. Do not be content with general factors like economies of scale;

• Avoid vague, general opportunities and threats that could be put forward for just about any organisation under any circumstances;

• Do not mistake the outcomes of strength (such as profits and market share) for strengths in their won right;

• Improvements is not the same as strength – do not confuse the two;

• Avoid contradicting yourself in the course of the analysis, by having strengths and weaknesses that are essentially different aspects of the same strategy of resource. Come to a reasoned conclusion about whether the good points outweigh the bad ones, or vice versa.

Where to Find Information for SWOT Analysis

Students, when finding the essential information for conducting SWOT analysis, would have to look at company’s business reports, annual reviews, published performance data on financial resources, marketing and operations, including current suppliers and key stakeholders groups.

It can also be helpful to search various journals on marketing, strategy, human resources to find out more published and referenced information on the company’s past experience, its current position and future objectives.

SWOT Analysis Limitations

A key element of strategic option formulation is the matching of organizational strengths and weaknesses with opportunities and threats which exist in the marketplace. SWOT analysis is widely recognized in the marketing and strategic management literature as a systematic way of achieving this end. A number of critics however have claimed that the output from a SWOT analysis is often either trivial or so broad as to be relatively meaningless in the context of making actual marketing decisions. Mintzberg (1990), for example, states that the assessment of strengths and weaknesses may be unreliable, being bound up with aspirations, biases and hopes. Therefore, it is important for strengths and weaknesses to be defined in the context of a situation. As a consequence, a creative problem-solving tool such as brainstorming may thus be a useful help in overcoming this difficulty.

SWOT analysis can be used in many ways to aid strategic analysis. The most common way is to use it as a logical framework guiding systematic discussion of a firm’s resources and the basic alternatives that emerge from this resource-based view. What one manager sees as an opportunity, another may see as a potential threat. Likewise, a strength to one manager can be a weakness to another. Different assessments may reflect underlying power considerations within the firm or differing factual perspectives. Systematic analysis of these issues facilitates objectives internal analysis (Hill and Westbrook, 1997; Markides, 1999). Understanding the key opportunities and threats facing a firm helps its managers identify realistic options from which to choose an appropriate strategy and clarifies the most effective niche for the firm.

One of the historical deficiencies of SWOT analysis was the tendency to rely on a very general, categorical assessment of internal capabilities. The resource-based view came to exist in part as a remedy to this void in the strategic management field. It is an excellent way to identify internal strengths and weaknesses and use that information to enhance the quality of a SWOT analysis. Similarly, value chain analysis identifies elements of a company’s capabilities and operations that are useful in conducting a SWOT analysis.

Conclusion

SWOT helps a company to se itself for better and for worse. Companies are inherently insular and inward looking SWOTs are a means by which a company can better understand what it does very well and where its shortcomings are. SWOTs will help the company size up the competitive landscape and get some insight into the vagaries of the marketplace.

SWOT analysis has been a framework of choice among many managers for along time because of its simplicity and its portrayal of the essence of sound strategy formulation - matching a firm’s opportunities and threats wit its strengths and weaknesses. Central to making SWOT analysis effective is accurate internal analysis – the identification of specific strengths and weaknesses around which sound strategy can be built.

Determine The Root Cause: 5 Whys

Asking "Why?" may be a favorite technique of your three year old child in driving you crazy, but it could teach you a valuable Six Sigma quality lesson. The 5 Whys is a technique used in the Analyze phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. It's a great Six Sigma tool that doesn't involve data segmentation, hypothesis testing, regression or other advanced statistical tools, and in many cases can be completed without a data collection plan.
By repeatedly asking the question "Why" (five is a good rule of thumb), you can peel away the layers of symptoms which can lead to the root cause of a problem. Very often the ostensible reason for a problem will lead you to another question. Although this technique is called "5 Whys," you may find that you will need to ask the question fewer or more times than five before you find the issue related to a problem.

Benefits Of The 5 Whys

 Help identify the root cause of a problem.
 Determine the relationship between different root causes of a problem.
 One of the simplest tools; easy to complete without statistical analysis.

When Is 5 Whys Most Useful?

 When problems involve human factors or interactions.
 In day-to-day business life; can be used within or without a Six Sigma project.

How To Complete The 5 Whys

1. Write down the specific problem. Writing the issue helps you formalize the problem and describe it completely. It also helps a team focus on the same problem.
2. Ask Why the problem happens and write the answer down below the problem.
3. If the answer you just provided doesn't identify the root cause of the problem that you wrote down in step 1, ask Why again and write that answer down.
4. Loop back to step 3 until the team is in agreement that the problem's root cause is identified. Again, this may take fewer or more times than five Whys.

5 Whys Examples

Problem Statement: Customers are unhappy because they are being shipped products that don't meet their specifications.
1. Why are customers being shipped bad products? - Because manufacturing built the products to a specification that is different from what the customer and the sales person agreed to.
2. Why did manufacturing build the products to a different specification than that of sales? - Because the sales person expedites work on the shop floor by calling the head of manufacturing directly to begin work. An error happened when the specifications were being communicated or written down.
3. Why does the sales person call the head of manufacturing directly to start work instead of following the procedure established in the company? - Because the "start work" form requires the sales director's approval before work can begin and slows the manufacturing process (or stops it when the director is out of the office).
4. Why does the form contain an approval for the sales director? - Because the sales director needs to be continually updated on sales for discussions with the CEO.

In this case only four Whys were required to find out that a non-value added signature authority is helping to cause a process breakdown.

Let's take a look at a slightly more humorous example modified from Marc R.'s posting of 5 Whys in the iSixSigma Dictionary.

Problem Statement: You are on your way home from work and your car stops in the middle of the road.
1. Why did your car stop? - Because it ran out of gas.
2. Why did it run out of gas? - Because I didn't buy any gas on my way to work.
3. Why didn't you buy any gas this morning? - Because I didn't have any money.
4. Why didn't you have any money? - Because I lost it all last night in a poker game.
5. Why did you lose your money in last night's poker game? - Because I'm not very good at "bluffing" when I don't have a good hand.

As you can see, in both examples the final Why leads the team to a statement (root cause) that the team can take action upon. It is much quicker to come up with a system that keeps the sales director updated on recent sales or teach a person to "bluff" a hand than it is to try to directly solve the stated problems above without further investigation.

5 Whys And The Fishbone DiagramThe 5 Whys can be used individually or as a part of the fishbone (also known as the cause and effect or Ishikawa) diagram. The fishbone diagram helps you explore all potential or real causes that result in a single defect or failure. Once all inputs are established on the fishbone, you can use the 5 Whys technique to drill down to the root causes.

Take-Away Quotation"If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the ABC of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems." -- Edward Hodnett

My Favorite PowerPoint Resources

Of course, I am not the only one in our company who uses PowerPoint. Hardly. It has become ubiquitous in our organization. We use it for Board meetings, author presentations, sales conferences, and other ad hoc meetings. To misquote a verse from the Gospel of Matthew, “where ever two or three are gathered, there is PowerPoint in their midst.”
The problem is that most people using PowerPoint have not received adequate training. In fact, most have received no training whatsoever. As a result, too many people misuse the tool. This results in too many slides, too many bullets, and too much copy. Consequently, the tool often becomes a hindrance to communication rather than an aid.

Evidently, these people are not aware that the Web is full of PowerPoint resources. I contend that in less than two hours of surfing, you can radically improve the effectiveness of your PowerPoint presentations. Here is a list of resources to get you started (in alphabetical order):

Beyond Bullets—This is great Web site on how to use PowerPoint more effectively. The content is very stimulating—and will challenge your presuppositions. Guaranteed. This is not a collection of more templates and clipart. Instead, it presents serious thinking about the way you use PowerPoint and how to improve your effectiveness.

Crystal Graphics—This is a great source for PowerPoint add-ins that enhance the basic program. Television-like transitions, 3D Titles, supershapes, and custom templates are some of the more popular add-ins. I have purchased several of these and found the quality excellent. My only caution is that some of the effects, particularly the television-like transitions, require some serious hardware horsepower.

DesignSense—This company advertises itself as “graphic design training for businesspeople.” It contains a series of design lessons for people (like me!) who have no formal graphic design training. They claim that the training you receive on the site is equivalent to a 40-hour graphic design course. However, it is condensed into 12 hours of computer-based training. It costs $59.00.

Excelsius—This is my favorite charting program. It essentially creates animated flash movies, based on Excel data. It is highly customizable and very sophisticated. This also makes for a somewhat steep learning curve. However, if you want your charts to have the “wow” factor, no other charting program I have tried comes close.

MasterViews—This site is actually a blog. It offers a large collection of very specific and very practical PowerPoint tips. Comments from readers further enhance the value of the content. The site also offers news related to new PowerPoint add-ins and related hardware (like wireless pointers and mice).

Microsoft Clip Gallery Live—This is Microsoft’s clipart site. It is a good resource and it’s free. However, I prefer JupiterImages.com. It’s probably worth checking here first to see if you can find what you need. If you find that it just doesn’t have enough horsepower, then you can join JupiterImages.com or some other subscription site.

MindManager X5—This is one of the five most-used pieces of software on my computer. It will change forever the way you plan and prepare your presentations. It is essentially a brainstorming tool that allows you to create “mental maps” of your presentations. It will help you quickly get all your ideas out of your head and then organize them. In my experience, this tool provides a much faster path to the final result than any other tool I have ever used. When you are done with your map, you can export it directly to PowerPoint. Best of all, MindJet, the software developer, offers a free 30-day trial.

PowerPoint Add-Ins—This is a collection of mostly useful add-ins written by PowerPoint Guru, Shyam Pillai. My favorites are the “Handout Wizard for PowerPoint,” which allows you to create customized layouts, “Rename Shape/Slide Add-in,” which enables you to rename slides and shapes by clicking on them, and “Toolbox for PowerPoint,” which provides a collection of Shyam’s VBA code snippets for PowerPoint.

PowerPoint ImageObjects—This site offers a collection of what others call “floating objects.” These are graphic objects with transparent backgrounds that appear to float on top of the slide. The site offers collections of symbols and shapes, metaphor objects, numbers, bullets, and other objects. These objects are very cool and very professional.

PowerPoint Templates Pro—This is yet another collection of professionally produced PowerPoint templates. You can purchase single templates or a collection of templates. The site’s customers include a impressive roster of Fortune 100 companies.

PowerPointers—This site is not so much about PowerPoint as it is about planning, building, and delivering great presentations. It contains a series of very helpful articles, especially for people who are just getting started. Even veteran presenters will find plenty of helpful tips to improve the quality and impect of their presentations.

Presentation Plates—Yet another collection of PowerPoint templates. If you haven’t found what you are looking for, this site is worth checking.

PresentationPro—This site offers some very cool tools not found anywhere else. For example, EmailPRESENTER allows you to e-mail a PowerPoint presentation to someone within the body of the e-mail itself (rather than as an attachment). OnlinePRESENTER is similar, in that it allows your Web site visitors to run a PowerPoint presentation on your site without having to download the presentation and run it within PowerPoint itself.

Presenters Online—This site is sponsored by Epson. It contains a variety of helpful articles and resources related to PowerPoint software and presentation hardware. Naturally, the purpose of the site is to sell Epson hardware; however, I still found it useful.

Presenters University—This site is sponsored by InFocus, a competitor to Epson. It is one of the best siites for PowerPoint training. It contains a number of courses that you or your staff can work through. It has tons of articles, software you can download and try, and even an “Ask the Professor” bulletin board where you can get answers to your specific questions.

Projector Solution—This site has many resources. One article is must reading. It is called “The Art of Communicating Effectively: Tips about all aspects of pulling off a successful presentation!” It’s must reading for every PowerPoint presenter.
Really Bad PowerPoint—This is a controversial white paper written by Seth Godin, the author of The Big Red Fez, The Purple Cow, and Permission Marketing. You may not agree with Seth’s conclusions, sbut it will definitely stimulate your thinking. I distributed the article to my staff following a very tedious sales conference presentation. They read the article, made adjustments, and dramatically improved their presentation at the next sales conference. This article is great for squashing the tendency to make your slides too copy-intensive and bullet-heavy.

ZapIt Media—This is another collection of PowerPoint templates. But these are very different and very cool. Like PowerPoint Templates Pro, you can download single templates or collections.

AbsoluVision—This is a royalty free collection of images in the JPEG2000 format. (This is the new JPEG format that offers better quality at higher compression.) These are excellent images, many them depicted as floating objects. You can buy individual images for $4.95 each or subscribe to the service for $25.00 a month or $99.95 per year. Either option entitles you to download 200 images a month.

Indezine—This is a great PowerPoint information site run by Geetesh Bajaj, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. It contains PowerPoint articles, links, reviews, and templates. Geetesh also sends out a weekly ezine on PowerPoint. The reviews page is especially helpful. He lists almost every known PowerPoint add-in.

Tony’s PowerPoint Weblog—This blog bills itself as the Internet’s first business weblog dedicated to PowerPoint, presentations and related topics. It contains many short, insightful tips bound to improve your PowerPoint presentations.
If you have other resources that I have omitted, please use the comments feature on my site (see the end of this article) to share your favorites.