Bharti Airtel is the largest cellular provider in India, with more than 300 million customers as of 2014. It also supplies broadband and telephone services, as well as many other telecommunications services to both domestic and corporate customers. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have an on/off relationship. Vodafone owned a 5.6% stake in the Airtel business, until it sold it back to Airtel and invested in Airtel’s rival, Hutchison Essar. Knowledge and technology previously available to Airtel moved into the hands of one of its competitors. In a SWOT analysis, this point represents .

An opportunity.

Explanation:

Businesses conduct a SWOT analysis when they want to identify their internal weaknesses and strengths, it is also used to identify external opportunity and threats.

Firms use the analysis to develop a competitive strategy in the market by taking advantage of opportunities presented while mitigating risk posed by threats in the industry.

In this scenario Hutchinson Essar obtained a 5.6% stake in Airtel fr Vodafone. This transaction resulted in movement of knowledge and technology previously available to Airtel to one of its competitors.

This was an opportunity for Hutchinson Essar.

a threat

Explanation:

A threat is part of your external environmental analysis and it is basically the opposite of an opportunity. In this case, the threat exists because the new knowledge and technology acquired by Bharti's rival Hutchison can really cause severe damage to the company.

The logic behind this is quite simple, Vodafone has more knowledge and higher technology than Bharti, and probably Bharti's previous competitive advantage resulted from Vodafone's aid. But now, Vodafone is playing for the other team. So your team lost the star quarterback, running back and receiver, they are all playing against you now, and probably do not have very nice feelings towards your team either.

What was once Bharti's greatest strength is now the competition's greatest strength, and that can really damage a company. Generally that is the reason why non-competing clauses are included in many contracts that involve sensitive and important areas.