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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Some Ideas To Help Accelerate Your SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a tool used to assess an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

The purpose of using the SWOT tool is to uncover or reveal the organization's competitive advantages, and what opportunities (sales, profitability) to capitalize upon.

It's also used to articulate the challenges an organization has, enabling contingency plans.

An analysis of the organization's strengths and weaknesses is typically an internal examination process. It's typically based on a review of internal and external facts and assumptions about the organization and the marketplace in which it operates.

Having trouble starting out your SWOT analysis?

Consider exploring these key categories:

Strengths and Weaknesses
  • Marketing (company image, reputation, positioning, market share, growth)
  • Products and Services (price, quality,
  • Finances (stability, profitability, debt to equity ratio)
  • Operations (facilities, capacity, distribution channels, supply chain, costs, use of technology)
  • Organizational (leadership, accountability, commitment, engagement)
Opportunities and Threats
  • Demographic (customer trends - age, lifestyle, education, buying patterns)
  • Economic (economic growth rate, stability, inflation)
  • Political / Legal (government stability, controls and regulations, effects of terrorism)
  • Social (lifestyle trends, communications, ethnicity)
  • Cultural (values, ethics)
  • Environmental (sustainability, conservation)
  • Technological (pace and changes in technology)
  • Competition (industry leaders, number of competitors, fragmentation/consolidation)

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