1. What is our competitive advantage?
2. What resources do we have?
3. What products are performing well?
Companies may consider performing this step as a "white-boarding" or "sticky note" session. The idea is there is no right or wrong answer; all participants should be encouraged to share whatever thoughts they have. These ideas can later be discarded; in the meantime, the goal should be to come up with as many items as possible to invoke creativity and inspiration in others.
With the list of ideas within each category, it is now time to clean-up the ideas. By refining the thoughts that everyone had, a company can focus on only the best ideas or largest risks to the company. This stage may require substantial debate among analysis participants, including bringing in upper management to help rank priorities.
Armed with the ranked list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, it is time to convert the SWOT analysis into a strategic plan. Members of the analysis team take the bulleted list of items within each category and create a synthesized plan that provides guidance on the original objective.
For example, the company debating whether to release a new product may have identified that it is the market leader for its existing product and there is the opportunity to expand to new markets. However, increased material costs, strained distribution lines, the need for additional staff, and unpredictable product demand may outweigh the strengths and opportunities. The analysis team develops the strategy to revisit the decision in six months in hopes of costs declining and market demand becoming more transparent.
Use a SWOT analysis to identify challenges affecting your business and opportunities that can enhance it. However, note that it is one of many techniques, not a prescription.
When preparing a SWOT analysis, several common mistakes can undermine its effectiveness. Let's take a look at some ways your SWOT analysis may go awry.
One easy error to make when preparing a SWOT analysis is failing to be objective and honest in the assessment. Companies often tend to overemphasize their strengths while downplaying weaknesses, resulting in an overly optimistic and unrealistic analysis. This bias can lead to missed opportunities for improvement and leave the organization vulnerable to unforeseen threats. As difficult as it may be to be honest in your analysis, the validity of underlying assumptions is the cornerstone of how useful the SWOT analysis will be.
Another significant mistake is conducting the analysis in isolation, without input from diverse key stakeholders . You should try get to input from employees at various levels, customers, suppliers, and industry experts. Each may have a unique view of your company, and each may come up with different items to be listed in each quadrant based on how they specifically interact with the company.
Yet another common pitfall is neglecting to prioritize or weight the factors identified in the SWOT analysis. Not all strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are equally important or impactful. Failing to distinguish between major and minor factors can lead to misallocation of resources and misguided strategic decisions. It can be easy for the important items to be buried if too many non-material items are identified.
Another frequent error is treating the SWOT analysis as a one-time exercise. You should be prepared to do a SWOT analysis periodically, The business environment is constantly changing, and a SWOT analysis should be regularly updated to remain relevant. In addition, the analysis itself is just the beginning; its true value lies in using the findings to develop and implement strategic actions. You can then check future SWOT analysis to make sure the company is addressing the major points.
A SWOT analysis won't solve every major question a company has. However, there's a number of benefits to a SWOT analysis that make strategic decision-making easier.
Let's perform a SWOT analysis together by analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Tesla.
The four steps of SWOT analysis comprise the acronym SWOT: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These four aspects can be broken into two analytical steps. First, a company assesses its internal capabilities and determines its strengths and weaknesses. Then, a company looks outward and evaluates external factors that impact its business. These external factors may create opportunities or threaten existing operations.
Creating a SWOT analysis involves identifying and analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a company. It is recommended to first create a list of questions to answer for each element. The questions serve as a guide for completing the SWOT analysis and creating a balanced list. The SWOT framework can be constructed in list format, as free text, or, most commonly, as a 4-cell table, with quadrants dedicated to each element. Strengths and weaknesses are listed first, followed by opportunities and threats.
A SWOT analysis is used to strategically identify areas of improvement or competitive advantages for a company. In addition to analyzing thing that a company does well, SWOT analysis takes a look at more detrimental, negative elements of a business. Using this information, a company can make smarter decisions to preserve what it does well, capitalize on its strengths, mitigate risk regarding weaknesses, and plan for events that may adversely affect the company in the future.
While SWOT analysis is a powerful tool, it does have some limitations. It can sometimes oversimplify complex situations and is susceptible to the subjectivity and bias of participants. The analysis also doesn't provide specific guidance on how to address identified issues and can lead to analysis paralysis if not followed by concrete action.
A SWOT analysis is a great way to guide business-strategy meetings. It's powerful to have everyone in the room discuss the company's core strengths and weaknesses, define the opportunities and threats, and brainstorm 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.
Although a useful planning tool, SWOT has limitations. It is one of several business planning techniques to consider and should not be used alone. Also, each point listed within the categories is not prioritized the same. SWOT does not account for the differences in weight. Therefore, a deeper analysis is needed, using another planning technique.
Business News Daily. " SWOT Analysis: What It Is and When to Use It ."
Tesla. " Supercharger ."
Reuters. " Tesla Quarterly Deliveries Decline for the First Time in Nearly Four Years ."
Tesla. " Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability ."
How to do a swot analysis in 5 steps, a refresher on swot.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The purpose of a SWOT analysis is to objectively review what your organization is and isn’t doing well to create a synthesized view of the current state of your organization. This article will further help you on how to do a SWOT analysis. But, if you need a refresher, be sure to read our introductory post here !
Excellent strategic planning begins with a keen understanding of where you are today to build a bright and prosperous future. A key concept to remember is identifying the attribute and its impact, be it positive or negative.
A SWOT analysis is a great way to identify, organize, and fully determine your current state.
We’ll discuss what it is in more detail, how to pull it all together, and then most importantly, explain how to effectively put it to use while you have the momentum to do so.
A SWOT analysis, by definition, is designed to look at the internal and external forces that hinder or enable your organization and what market forces you need to seize or mitigate. Need help with your SWOT? Use this SWOT template with examples!
A complete SWOT analysis requires examining internal and external data to create a holistic assessment of your organization’s current state.
Pro Tip – Without data, a SWOT can be filled with opinions instead of data and facts. You can lean into your team’s opinions, but they shouldn’t be the sole basis for your SWOT. Lean on good data.
Internal Data Sources
External Data Sources
Step 2: assess your internal strengths.
Look within and focus on the experience and resources you have today that you can further develop and lean on for continued success.
Pro Tip – Your growth strategy and competitive advantages start here. You need to know what you do well today to determine how it will play into your approach to growth and if the unique strengths you possess are your competitive advantages.
Questions to ask to help identify your organization’s strengths?
Example Data Sources and Ideas for Strengths
This can feel like a vulnerable, critical part of completing your SWOT analysis because it requires a level of self-criticism and honesty that can be daunting – but remember, it can be a rewarding exercise if done with objectivity and clarity. You get the chance to identify what’s not working in your organization and how you might address those issues to better support your vision and mission.
Pro Tip – You’ll need to take a step back and be vulnerable and honest about your weaknesses. If you are honest, you’ll be able to create strategies or initiatives to solve your organization’s biggest weaknesses.
Questions to Answer
Example Data Sources and Areas to Look for Weaknesses
Finding opportunities based in your market takes research, a bit of creativity, and skill. It’s about finding external market opportunities that your organization is well positioned to take advantage of, and sometimes it requires thinking outside of the box.
Opportunities rely solely on external sources, which requires digging and finding good data sources to review your market. And because it’s based on external data, it can be a more challenging section of your SWOT. But it can be refreshing to complete this section in your SWOT because you get to see the world through the lens of an optimist. You’ll get to examine economic and market trends, environmental concerns, and political/governmental regulations that could propel your organization to your desired future state.
Pro Tip – The world is in a constant state of change. When assessing your market opportunities, look for current data and emerging market trends. A market report from 3 years ago might still be relevant but be critical about your sources. Current data is important.
Questions to Answer:
Example Data Sources to Consider
Threats are external factors out of your control that can hurt your organization. A threat is not a weakness; those are internal factors that you can generally solve with intention. A threat must be identified to reduce the risk of harm or mitigate possible damages.
Pro Tip – Threats can be mitigated, sometimes. In other cases, it’s just something you need to watch closely and respond to when necessary.
Standing back and addressing your current state requires digging deep, getting a bit uncomfortable, and thinking hard about where your organization currently stands today.
Here’s the checklist of an awesome SWOT analysis:
Now that you’ve done the heavy lifting, how do you make sure your hard work isn’t in vain? You use what you’ve got to get what you want, which is a roadmap to success. The most important thing is to use your SWOT to turn the information into goals, actions, and other elements of your strategic plan.
The strengths section of a SWOT helps create a few specific outputs. The first of which is to help create goals and actions for your team to build upon your strengths.
The second output of your strengths is to help your organization identify its competitive advantages. We’ve covered this extensively in our competitive advantages post and guide, so check that out here !
Examples of Strengths
The weaknesses section helps your organization identify clear areas of improvement. The key here is that you need to decide what is most important or urgent to act upon, and then create goals or actions in your plan to address these weaknesses.
Looking at your weaknesses, it is entirely within your ability to control and change them, so you can create initiatives to solve areas of concern. It is recommended to start with the most pertinent and then work your way through the list from there.
Examples to Show How to do a SWOT Analysis
Examine your opportunities and create short-term and long-term goals focusing on how to strategically go after them to win more business or benefits for your organization.
Your external opportunities paired with your competitive advantages are what feed your growth strategy. Check out our post and guide on building your growth strategy !
Pro Tip – Have too many opportunities and not sure what you need to prioritize? Check out our guide on prioritizing opportunities .
In most cases, your SWOTs won’t have a significant number of threats, but look at the few you do have as an opportunity to create proactive initiatives.
If you don’t need to create proactive initiatives, it is best to review and refresh them quarterly to see if anything is an emerging threat.
Last tip, whatever you do, do not go through the exercise of putting your SWOT together and then fail to put it to good use. We see that ALL the time. Make sure you use your SWOT to build out your goals and your competitive advantages to set yourself apart and create a winning roadmap for success. Happy strategizing!
Still not sure how to conduct a SWOT analysis? Read our Frequently Asked Questions for more clarity.
OnStrategy recommends five tips to help you easily and thoughtfully develop your own SWOT analysis:
A PESTLE analysis can serve as a great alternative or addition to your SWOT analysis. It looks at the various environmental/external forces your organization may come up against such as political, economic, sociological, technological, legal, and environmental forces that can prove as either threats or opportunities to your business.
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Where do you see yourself in five years? How about your career? Your business?
These questions keep a staggering amount of people awake at night. All too often, the future can seem like a dark, ominous cloud that looms just out of view. As the old proverb goes, we fear the unknown—and little can possibly be more unknowable than the future.
While there is no crystal ball that can accurately predict future market trends or the steps you should take to optimize your productivity and sharpen your competitive edge, we can offer some advice: Reframe the question. Rather than trying to pinpoint where you think you might be in five years, think about where you want to be at that point in time. Once you have a destination in mind, you can start planning a route to get there. After all, maps are great tools, but they can't help you if you don't know where you're going.
So, what's the metaphorical map in this scenario? We present to you the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.
SWOT analyses are great strategic tools that are useful in project planning, business development , financial strategizing, and personal advancement . Simple, honest, and to-the-point, they facilitate a profound understanding of your or your business's current standing. Essentially, a SWOT analysis is a comparative list of all your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
There's more power in this process than you might think. You may be only hazily aware of your own strengths and weaknesses. However, thoughtfully recording and reflecting on them creates a thorough, conscious familiarity with both the resources available to you and the obstacles standing in your way. This awareness allows you to map out a path toward your goals with great precision and purpose. Writing a SWOT analysis will help you clearly evaluate whether your goals are feasible according to your resources and needs.
In this guide, we'll break down exactly how to write a SWOT analysis and provide a few examples along the way. Feel free to use our SWOT analysis template, given below, to write your own!
Your list of strengths should focus on your current resources and abilities. It should relate to things that you do or that your company does well. These might be your or your company's accomplishments—both great and small—and the assets that you or your company have. Your strengths give you your greatest edge; they are the resources that propel you forward and that you can continue to develop as you progress.
When you draw up your first SWOT analysis, you may find yourself at a loss. Don't worry—it's difficult for most people to come up with an objective list of strengths and weaknesses on the spot. For your convenience, we've included a list of questions you can ask yourself to get started.
These questions should help you identify a few of your strengths. Remember, while our example questions mostly relate to business strengths, they can also apply to personal strengths. Go ahead and boast as much as you can.
Listing your weaknesses might be a little more uncomfortable than detailing your strengths, but trust us—doing so will help you in the long run. Understanding the obstacles in your path and the elements of your business or skills you may need to improve is just as important as appreciating your strengths. Once you're aware of your weaknesses, you can start working on them and building your next steps around them.
Your list of weaknesses should pertain to any current problems and challenges. Check out the list of questions below—it should give you an idea of where to start. Again, if you'd rather focus on your personal or career growth, feel free to alter these questions to suit your needs.
Think about the opportunities available to you as potential future strengths. Your opportunities are the assets, resources, and events that could be beneficial to you in some way in the future. You may need to change some of your current approaches or adapt in other ways to capitalize on these opportunities, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to identify your potential opportunities:
Just as your opportunities are based on potential, so are your threats; these are the possible obstacles or issues that are not yet directly affecting your progress. But this doesn't mean that you shouldn't start thinking about them! Being aware of the challenges that you may encounter will help you either plan around them or confront them with solutions. Try to come up with several future events that may realistically hinder the momentum you build from engaging with your strengths and opportunities.
To get started, take a peek at our list of questions:
How did you do? Do you feel like you've listed everything? Or do you think you're missing something? Below, we've drafted examples of a business and a personal SWOT analysis to provide you with some perspective on what a completed one might look like.
The humble but effective SWOT analysis will produce a detailed map of your current environment—its hills and valleys alike. Knowing how to write a SWOT analysis will provide you with the vantage point you need to choose a direction and blaze a trail toward your goals. SWOT analyses may not be crystal balls, but they are something like compasses. Use them wisely, and you will never be lost.
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The vice president supports the tax increases proposed by the Biden White House, according to her campaign.
By Andrew Duehren
Reporting from Washington
In a campaign otherwise light on policy specifics, Vice President Kamala Harris this week quietly rolled out her most detailed, far-ranging proposal yet: nearly $5 trillion in tax increases over a decade.
That’s how much more revenue the federal government would raise if it adopted a number of tax increases that President Biden proposed in the spring . Ms. Harris’s campaign said this week that she supported those tax hikes, which were thoroughly laid out in the most recent federal budget plan prepared by the Biden administration.
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While tax policy is right now a subplot in a turbulent presidential campaign, it will be a primary policy issue in Washington next year. The next president will have to work with Congress to address the tax cuts Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2017. Many of those tax cuts expire after 2025, meaning millions of Americans will see their taxes go up if lawmakers don’t reach a deal next year.
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Here's how to effectively write a strength in a SWOT analysis: Identify Internal Positive Attributes: Focus on internal factors that are within the control of the business. These can include resources, skills, or other advantages relative to competitors. Consider areas like strong brand reputation, proprietary technology, skilled workforce ...
What Is A SWOT Analysis? Download Our Free Template
Thankfully, business analyses are designed to help you work that out. Before actually getting started with your business plan, be sure to conduct a concise business analysis (which might also use a SWOT analysis as discussed in a previous article) to gain some more insight into this matter. Actually Planning with SWOT
SWOT Analysis: How To Do One [With Template & ...
What Is a SWOT Analysis and How to Do it Right in 2021 ...
SWOT Analysis: How to Strengthen Your Business Plan | TSI
A SWOT analysis is typically conducted using a four-square SWOT analysis template, but you could also just make lists for each category. Use the method that makes it easiest for you to organize and understand the results. I recommend holding a brainstorming session to identify the factors in each of the four categories.
Published on Dec. 13, 2022. Image: Shutterstock / Built In. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis is a visual framework used for strategic planning across all types of businesses and organizations. SWOT analyses are made up of four components that will help you determine the output of your team's analysis.
December 13, 2021. A SWOT Analysis is an integral part of any good business plan. Whether you've been in business for ten years or you're just getting specifics together for a new product, a thoughtful SWOT analysis will inform every part of your business. SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
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How to do a SWOT Analysis in 7 Steps (with Examples & ...
Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Jun 7, 2021 • 3 min read. As entrepreneurs embark on strategic planning initiatives to set business strategy and define decision-making protocols, they may need space for a sober analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This popular type of business analysis is known as a SWOT analysis.
SWOT Analysis: Examples and Templates [2024]
What Is A SWOT Analysis? An Explanation With Examples
3. Create Your SWOT. Use a template, write on a whiteboard or use paper and pen to draw the SWOT and then begin filling it in. This will require your business brain dump and your categorized ...
Review your weaknesses. Make a step-by-step action plan to evaluate their importance and mitigate the risk they post for the business. Evaluate the opportunities. Structure a plan that shows how you might take advantage of them, and what might hinder your progress. Weigh up the threats.
The SWOT analysis is a key tool for your strategic planning. Strategic planning is essential for realizing your company's potential. Essential to that plan is an awareness of your company's strengths and weaknesses, as well as understanding opportunities and threats facing your business. A SWOT analysis takes a global view of your company but ...
SWOT Analysis: How To With Table and Example
How to Do a SWOT Analysis in 5 Steps
How to Write a SWOT Analysis (Template and ...
Enter: the SWOT analysis, a tool business owners have been using for decades to better understand themselves, their teams, and their companies. But here's the kicker: A SWOT analysis isn't just a theoretical exercise. When used correctly, it can be a strategic power-up to fine-tune your business strategy.
History and Evolution of SWOT Analysis. The SWOT analysis was first created in the 1960s by business experts Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christensen, Kenneth Andrews, and William D. Guth.
Former President Donald Trump aims to lower corporate taxes while Vice President Kamala Harris proposes higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their taxes go up under the plan. Instead, Ms. Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.