A SWOT analysis that I made in 2011 for Wikimedia Foundation to start an India Program.

1. Wikimedia India - SWOT Analysis
Strengths
 Community potential – big population,
growing internet penetration
 Diversity
 Passion for languages
 More bang for the buck
 Governments’ sway over the system – a
signature can move things
 Low hanging fruits – under promoted
untapped space, Greenfield venture
 Media proliferation
 Absence of competing user-generated content
(UGC) websites
Weaknesses
 Low brand awareness
 Geographic expanse
 Bureaucracy
 Commons philosophy for creative content is
new
 Online volunteering new
Challenges1
 Technology issues
 Wiki philosophy needs to be imparted
 Freedom of Expression enforcement
inadequate
Opportunities
 Literary tradition implies huge corpora
 Potential to make a difference – in most Indic
languages, Wiki projects are the only websites
 Donor potential (large and small)
 Mediawiki Development –
internationalisation built-in rather than
localisation later
 Economic growth can drive more support,
contribution, and readership indirectly
 Driver for other South Asian and potentially
South East Asian demographics (Bangladesh,
Indonesia etc. have huge potential)
Threats
 Newbie attrition, exodus, and even forking
due to cultural issues
 Substitutes like FaceBook etc. – India has
deviated from the rest of the world trends in
this matter (eg. isolated success story for
Orkut)
 Unexpected government intervention similar
to the Blackberry case
 Unexpected economic slowdown
 Conflict of roles – chapter vs office
1 Some of these are applicable to Wikipedias in Indian languages, but excluding English, though WMF
in India has a mandate to develop participation in and deriving value out of English Wikipedia and
sister projects.