[DeletedUser]

Using a SWOT analysis for blood delivery via UAV in the US would help to determine the perspectives needed for a successful business operation and mission planning. This would be helpful to conduct beforehand as there are many catalysts that would be involved in this operation. It is extremely important to involve all members of the team as one may have insight or information that another member may not have.

The first thing to examine would be the strengths and weaknesses of the company. These can also be known as the internal factors that will affect the day-to-day operations and can be looked at in positive or negative aspects. These strengths and weaknesses should be documented and monitored daily as the possibility to “switch sides” will be present. This means that not all strengths will stay strengths and not all weaknesses will remain weaknesses.

When looking at strengths, a company’s opportunities, prospects, assets, resources, employees, managers, past experiences and activities need to be carefully examined considering the extreme volatile nature of the cargo. If a team was put together that did not understand much about blood to begin with, there may not be much success in the operations. Things like forward operating bases would need to be planned out in accordance with the planned distance to the delivery zone and the time that it would take to get there. These delivery zones are most likely near or at hospitals being that this is a delivery program for the U.S so airspace restrictions, TFRs, BVLOS, live air traffic and many, many people not involved with the operation will be present. Is only one hospital or clinic being flown to? That doesn’t sound very profitable, so extreme care would need to be taken in even deciding where to put your forward operating base so as to reach as many clients as possible. The U.S. is not the plains of Africa whom blood delivery is being utilized for via UAV instead of hours and hours of off the beaten path driving. There are an extreme number of hurdles involved with this project stateside. These could be looked at as weaknesses and regulatory staunching of the project would be counted as such.

By creating a SWOT analysis in the beginning, these factors would be identified amongst the team and a plan could be developed of how to address these issues and the steps that were needed for it to be successful. It is important to have a designated leader for this type of analysis to keep things moving. There are so many regulatory concerns at this point and it would be extremely easy to get hung up and cease forward progress. It can not be left up to only the leader though. This will take a massive team effort to accomplish.

Once the strengths and weaknesses are brought to the table and identified, forward progress could be made to then list out the opportunities and threats and compared to those strengths and weaknesses that have been identified. By creating a list or a grid as this analysis is started, these items can be tracked properly and monitored because what is a weakness today may not be tomorrow and vice versa.

Also, by doing this analysis beforehand, the company will not (hopefully) hit any snags when potential clients or regulatory agencies begin asking “those” questions because the answers have already been found, listed and discussed.