9. Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) Analysis

9.1. What Is SWOT Analysis?

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework used to evaluate a company’s competitive position and to develop strategic planning. SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future potential.

A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, its initiatives, or an industry. The organization needs to keep the analysis accurate by avoiding pre-conceived beliefs or gray areas and instead focusing on real-life contexts. Companies should use it as a guide and not necessarily as a prescription.

Key Takeaways

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that provides assessment tools. Identifying core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats lead to fact-based analysis, fresh perspectives and new ideas. SWOT analysis works best when diverse groups or voices within an organization are free to provide realistic data points rather than prescribed messaging.

9.2. Understanding SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a technique for assessing the performance, competition, risk, and potential of a business, as well as part of a business such as a product line or division, an industry, or other entity.

Important

Using internal and external data, a SWOT analysis can tell a company where it needs to improve internally, as well as help develop strategic plans.

Using internal and external data, the technique can guide businesses toward strategies more likely to be successful, and away from those in which they have been, or are likely to be, less successful. An independent SWOT analysis analysts, investors or competitors can also guide them on whether a company, product line or industry might be strong or weak and why.

9.3. A Visual Overview

Analysts present a SWOT analysis as a square with each of the four areas making up one quadrant. This visual arrangement provides a quick overview of the company’s position. Although all the points under a particular heading may not be of equal importance, they all should represent key insights into the balance of opportunities and threats, advantages and disadvantages, and so forth.

Fast facts

SWOT Analysis was first used to analyze businesses. Now it’s often used by governments, nonprofits, and individuals, including investors and entrepreneurs.

9.4. Example of SWOT Analysis

In 2015, a Value Line SWOT analysis of The Coca-Cola Company noted strengths such as its globally famous brand name, vast distribution network and opportunities in emerging markets. However, it also noted weaknesses and threats such as foreign currency fluctuations, growing public interest in “healthy” beverages and competition from healthy beverage providers.

Its SWOT analysis prompted Value Line to pose some tough questions about Coca-Cola’s strategy, but also to note that the company “will probably remain a top-tier beverage provider” that offered conservative investors “a reliable source of income and a bit of capital gains exposure.”

Strengths describe what an organization excels at and what separates it from the competition: a strong brand, loyal customer base, a strong balance sheet, unique technology, and so on. For example, a hedge fund may have developed a proprietary trading strategy that returns market-beating results. It must then decide how to use those results to attract new investors. Weaknesses stop an organization from performing at its optimum level. They are areas where the business needs to improve to remain competitive: a weak brand, higher-than-average turnover, high levels of debt, an inadequate supply chain, or lack of capital. Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage. For example, if a country cuts tariffs, a car manufacturer can export its cars into a new market, increasing sales and market share. Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm an organization. For example, a drought is a threat to a wheat-producing company, as it may destroy or reduce the crop yield. Other common threats include things like rising costs for materials, increasing competition, tight labor supply and so on.

9.5. Advantages of SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a great way to guide business-strategy meetings. It’s powerful to have everyone in the room to discuss the company’s core strengths and weaknesses and then move from there to define the opportunities and threats, and finally to brainstorming ideas. Oftentimes, the SWOT analysis you envision before the session changes throughout to reflect factors you were unaware of and would never have captured if not for the group’s input.

A company can use a SWOT for overall business strategy sessions or for a specific segment such as marketing, production or sales. This way, you can see how the overall strategy developed from the SWOT analysis will filter down to the segments below before committing to it. You can also work in reverse with a segment-specific SWOT analysis that feeds into an overall SWOT analysis.