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An introduction to swot analysis

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Theoretical Business Tools

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What is a: SWOT; SLEPT AND PEST ANALYSIS?

There are three main theoretical business tools that most business guru’s, academics and experts advocate. These are:

These acronyms will come up though the whole course, as they impact upon all businesses that are successful and are aspiring to be. We will briefly consider these valuable business tools. To illustrate each of these business analysis tools, the following diagrams explain how they are applied and used:-

SWOT Analysis

Strengths and weaknesses are internal and external to an organisation. A good example of external opportunities and constraints is that of the building industry in the UK today. The government is encouraging developers to build on ‘brown field’ sites as opposed to ‘green field’ sites. The constraint therefore is not being able to develop on green field sites while the opportunity is that of developing on brown field land. But, just as important as these three are, the greatest problem for business is threats – competition; regulation, compliance, etc.

Key Thinking!

The best way of thinking about constraints and opportunities is to realise that good businesses will seek to turn constraint into opportunities, while at the same time building on existing opportunities.

Organisations should use their strengths such as having a good reputation, and experience in a particular field or segment of the market coupled with good marketing and resources, to build competitive advantage.

SLEPT Analysis

Before creating business plans or when evaluating existing ones it is important to ‘scan’ the external environment’, for forces, that impact on the business. This can be done takes by using the very useful SLEPT analysis , which is an investigation of the Social, Legal, Economic, Political, and Technological influences on a business. In addition it is also important to be aware of the actions of your competitors. These important forces are continually in a state of flux and any business large or small, should at regular intervals carry out a SLEPT Analysis.

All businesses are influenced by SLEPT factors. For example, some of the SLEPT factors affecting the airline industry in recent years include:

Social: increased popularity of foreign travel leading to a boom in demand for air travel. However, this has been adversely affected by international terrorism.
Legal: there are increasingly tight rules about the materials that need to go into aircraft construction in order to make them safer and more resistant to fire hazards. This has had the impact of raising costs.
Economic: lower interest rates have meant that people have more disposable income to spend on luxuries like long distance air travel.
Political: the development of freedom of movement and trade in the European Union has led to greater levels of competition on European routes coupled with increased movement of people and recently – Brexit!
Technological: modern aircraft are safer and more economic to run than in the past making possible cheap air travel.

PEST Analysis

Before creating business plans or making decisions, it is important to ‘scan’ the external environment; this tool, is similar to the SLEPT analysis, be has a much greater depth and focus; that is more useful to larger businesses. This can also be achieved through a PEST analysis, i.e. an investigation of the Political, Economic, Social and Technological influences on a business. In addition it is also important to be aware of the actions of your competitors. These forces are continually in a state of change in any business.

The PEST Square

PEST Stands For…

Political changes: relate to changes in government influence and can have huge significance for companies. Changes in the priorities for public spending or the UK ‘s relationships with other countries can open or close major markets. European Union (EU) regulations can have similar effects while the accession of new members (eg Poland) can bring business opportunities.
Economic changes: are closely related to social ones. The economy goes through a series of fluctuations associated with general booms and slumps in economic activity. Businesses will be more encouraged to expand and take risks when economic conditions are right, e.g. low interest rates and rising demand.
Social factors: relate to pattern of behaviour, tastes, and lifestyles. A major component of this is a change in consumer behaviour resulting from changes in fashions and styles.
Technological changes: have also become particularly significant in the post-millennium world. This is particularly true in terms of modern communication technologies. All businesses need to be aware of the latest relevant technologies for their business and to surf the wave of change.

There are many other tools for analysis that are currently being presented in academic learning and theory, but the three given here have stood the test of time, and are universally used across business and academic settings the World over.

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How to Write a SWOT Analysis Paper

Successful businesses and people have been conducting SWOTs since at least the mid-twentieth century and have refined the process over time. The four categories you will explore in your SWOT analysis paper are Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), and Threats (T). You can use SWOT analysis to help you assess your position in project planning, business development , finance, relationships, or for personal growth. Since SWOT analysis papers are usually assigned in business school or associated with business planning, we will focus on the steps for writing a SWOT analysis paper for business, but keep in mind that the process can be tailored to any situation—professional or personal.

If this process sounds laborious or daunting, do not fret: As with most things, conducting a SWOT analysis will get easier the more you do it, and eventually it might become an essential part of all of your decision-making processes. As you evaluate your business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you will gain skills and insights that can help you evaluate yourself, your business, and various decisions you are facing.

Better than a pros and cons list

Perhaps you are thinking, This sounds just like a pros and cons list . A SWOT analysis provides more information than a simple pros and cons list, and it makes it easier to identify potential action items and areas for growth. SWOT analysis considers more than just the pros and cons of a situation: It helps you identify internal and external factors that contribute to or inhibit your success.

Strengths and Weaknesses are generally considered internal factors, so they are things that you or your company can control or can work to improve.

Opportunities and Threats are typically external factors that occur outside of your business (i.e., things that you cannot control), but they are things that could significantly affect you or your business.

Identify your objective/goal

To get the most benefit from your SWOT analysis, be as specific as possible with your objective . If you are analyzing a business, consider focusing on one particular aspect of the business.

The best way to formulate your paper is to use a SWOT analysis chart to organize your thoughts before you actually start writing.

Write down the initial strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, or threats that come to mind when you consider the objective. Use bullet points to separate items, be specific, and remember that you do not have to write in complete sentences on this chart. To be sure that you explore all applicable points, consider the following questions:

What does the business do best?
What do people like about it?
What draws people to the business?
What does the business offer that competitors can't or don't offer?
What puts the business at a disadvantage?
Consider employee feedback and customer reviews: Are there any items that multiple people have identified as issues?
In what areas does the business have less resources than competitors?
Why do potential clients choose a competitor over you?
What areas would you like to improve?

Be honest as you assess the business's weaknesses. Consider what aspects put your business at a disadvantage or what factors limit your growth potential. If you shy away from identifying weaknesses in this step, your SWOT analysis will not be effective or beneficial. Although it can be painful to identify weaknesses that are currently holding you back from personal or business growth, identifying and exploring these areas will give you the opportunity to improve. If you are uncertain if an item should be classified as a Weakness or a Threat , remember that Weaknesses are internal (things within the business that you can work to change) and Threats are external (things you have little or no control over). Also, accurately identifying weaknesses might help you recognize potential opportunities and/or threats.

Opportunities

Are there any potential market trends that suggest growth in your field in the coming year?
Does the business have any possible partnerships or sponsorships on the horizon?
Is the business considering expanding or developing new product lines or specialties?

In addition to any obvious opportunities, look at the strengths you've listed and see if there are any ways that you can turn strengths into opportunities.

Is the business affected by government policy? If so, are there any potential policy changes in the future?
What obstacles prevent you from doing more business or making more sales? Be specific and list them all.
Do you have periods of unreliable cash flow that threaten the business?
Does the weather or season affect the business?

Once you have listed all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, prioritize the results in each category from most impactful to least. Prioritizing your results in each of the four categories will help you visualize each item's importance so you can see how it relates to the other areas.

Writing the SWOT analysis paper

Now that you have filled out the SWOT chart and prioritized your SWOT results, you have the basic information to begin drafting your SWOT analysis paper. As with any professional paper, start with a strong introduction and state your objection and the focus of your SWOT analysis. In the next four paragraphs, describe the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that you prioritized on your SWOT analysis chart. If you have more items for each category than can comfortably fit in a paragraph, consider condensing your list. As you review the lists in each category, eliminate redundancies and consolidate similar items. If you still have too many items to fit in one paragraph after condensing, include one to three bullet points per paragraph, and try to keep the paragraphs balanced. For example, if you write three paragraphs for strengths, try to write three paragraphs for the other three categories as well.

Once you have identified and described your SWOTs, you can use your SWOT analysis chart to develop strategies and create a plan to achieve your business goals. The analysis is the most essential part of the SWOT analysis paper, because in this portion you will create action items and develop plans that can lead to future success. Assess each of the four areas (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) and look for commonalities or links between the categories. Some things to consider during this step:

Can you use one of your strengths to address a threat?
Look for ways to use your strengths to minimize your weaknesses.
How can you use your strengths to seize growth opportunities?
Is there a way to use your strengths to overcome threats?
Are there any weaknesses that you can address and eliminate?
Can you balance out a weakness by pursuing one of your opportunities?
Are your weaknesses preventing you from capitalizing on opportunities?
Are your weaknesses enhancing the likelihood that the business will suffer from a threat? If so, look to your strengths and see if there is a way to draw from your strengths to reduce the potential impact of the threat.

As you find connections between the bullet points in the four quadrants of your chart, start writing to generate ideas that you can turn into action. You can come back to edit these sentences and perfect these ideas later, but go ahead and record the thoughts now so you do not miss any potential connections. As you identify how different bullet points relate to each other, prioritize items that will generate revenue or reduce expenditure. Now, assess the action items that you have identified and put them in the order that makes the most sense to you. You can arrange your action items in the order that you would like to address them, or you can arrange them in the order that would make the most financial impact on the business. Organize the paragraphs in this section of the paper in your preferred order.

Now that you have performed a comprehensive SWOT analysis and identified action items to enhance strengths and reduce weaknesses, write a strong conclusion paragraph summarizing the most important findings. Keep in mind the purpose of your SWOT analysis paper here: If you intend to share this information with potential investors, make sure that you present a clear vision for growth and that you are realistic about how you will address weaknesses and potential threats. The crucial last step for any paper is to proofread, edit, and revise as needed. Now that you have completed your SWOT analysis and identified action plans, consider if applying a SWOT analysis to another aspect of your business or area of your life. Make a note in your calendar and conduct another SWOT analysis on this issue in six to twelve months so you can measure progress towards your goals.

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How to Write a SWOT Analysis (Template and Examples Included)

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Planning for the Future

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.

How to Write a SWOT 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!

Our SWOT Analysis Template

introduction for essay about swot analysis

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.

What sets your company apart from others?
What do you have that other companies don't?
What are you most proud of about your company?
What makes clients come back to you?
What does your company do well?
What assets do you have access to?
What qualities does your company have that other companies try to emulate?
What has always been easy for your company?

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.

What makes your company blend in with its competition?
What do other companies have that you don't?
What are the most common criticisms that you receive from clients?
Why have certain clients not returned to you?
What does your company need to improve upon?
What kind of feedback do you receive from your employees?
What might your competition consider to be a weakness?
What has always been difficult for your company?
What are you unwilling to do or change?

Opportunities

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:

What is happening in the current market that you could capitalize upon?
What changes have you been making that have returned positive results?
What is working for other companies?
How could you introduce new technology to make your processes more efficient?
What costs can you cut?
Could you access new sectors or demographic groups?
How can you improve or modernize your marketing techniques?
How can you remove existing obstacles?

Threats

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:

What obstacles might your weaknesses create?
Do changing market trends negatively affect your competitive edge?
What might stand in the way of the changes you make to accommodate your strengths and opportunities?
Do you have a lot of debt?
Could your competition exploit your weaknesses?

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.

An Example of a Personal SWOT Analysis

An Example of a Business SWOT Analysis

Final Words

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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What Is A SWOT Analysis? A Thorough Explanation With Examples

Know the strengths and weaknesses of your organization, internally and externally.

Historically, corporate planning has always been difficult. Many organizations have failed at trying to get everyone on the same page and agree to the details of a plan—more often than not, their efforts proved to be both ineffective and time consuming. Something had to be done.

Albert Humphrey of the Stanford Research Institute determined in the 1960s to identify why corporate planning consistently failed. Thus the origination of the SWOT analysis. Today, the SWOT analysis is one of the most important concepts in the business world and is widely used by all types of organizations to help build a strategic plan.

So, what is a SWOT analysis, how do you create one, and what do you do with it? In this article, we’ll explain it all (and share some SWOT analysis examples to boot) from start to finish.

ClearPoint Strategy is here to help you navigate this essential process with ease. Our software provides the tools and framework necessary to execute a successful SWOT analysis, ensuring your strategic plan is robust and actionable.

See ClearPoint Strategy in action! Click here to watch a quick DEMO on the software

What is a swot analysis.

A SWOT analysis is a high-level strategic planning model that helps organizations identify where they’re doing well and where they can improve, both from an internal and an external perspective. SWOT is an acronym for “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.”

‍ SWOT works because it helps you evaluate your business by considering multiple factors:

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors (things you can control), like team members, software, and geographic location.
Opportunities and threats represent external factors (things you can’t control), such as competitors, regulations, and economic trends.

Organizations use SWOT to plot out a future course that plays on their strengths and minimizes risks. Taking the time to look at your organization from different perspectives and honestly assess your future prospects is a worthwhile activity; the insights you glean as a result you should then use constructively as part of the strategic planning process.

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How to do a swot analysis.

To help you get started, we’ve created this step-by-step SWOT analysis template. The examples below are specific to the airline industry (since that’s the example we use in our grid), but the SWOT analysis exercise is applicable to all businesses.

You’ll notice we divided our hypothetical examples for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats based on the four Balanced Scorecard perspectives. You don’t have to use the Balanced Scorecard to be successful with your SWOT analysis, but this method does provide a strong framework for your discussion.

Not using the Balanced Scorecard? Look to the guiding principles of whatever strategic management framework you are using for ways to think about your business. For example, the VRIO framework emphasizes value, rarity, imitability, and organization; you can conduct a SWOT analysis through the lens of these criteria instead.

TIP: Before you start, get organized

Undertaking a SWOT analysis requires planning and organization; it can also be a lengthy process. For those reasons, we recommend treating it like a project. If you already have project management (PM) software, by all means use it.

If you don’t have software (or if you’re considering making a change), we encourage you to take a look at ClearPoint. It’s ideal for keeping individual projects on track, but it also does much more than that— it shows you how important projects impact your organization’s overall strategy. Are your projects moving the needle when it comes to your larger goals? That’s an important aspect of project management you can’t get with any other PM tool.

Viewing your SWOT analysis as a project within ClearPoint has multiple benefits:

You can maintain forward momentum by creating deadlines for each component, assigning responsible “owners” to tasks, and tracking milestones and overall progress.
You can simplify the information-gathering portion of SWOT by sending automated messages to relevant team members on when and how to input information.
You can facilitate collaboration among all parts of the organization by providing everyone access to a single tool that handles data collection.
You can encourage participation and increase engagement by making the SWOT analysis visible to as many or as few people as you like.
You can see how your SWOT connects to various parts of your strategy by linking elements to high-level objectives, other projects, measures, etc.—anything that adds context to the analysis.

Another benefit of treating your SWOT analysis as a project in ClearPoint: You won’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you repeat the process. You can just duplicate the framework, make any necessary adjustments, and then repeat the process as before, even comparing your newest SWOT to the previous analysis if necessary.

Below is a screenshot of what it might look like to set up a SWOT analysis as a project within ClearPoint, with some sample milestones shown.

Now, let’s dig into the steps of the analysis process.

1. Create a SWOT matrix

This is the grid-like matrix that will house the information you gather. As you can see in the SWOT analysis template below, each quadrant features one of the four elements you’ll be focusing on—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Using a matrix helps present your findings in a clear, easy-to-understand way.

Try ClearPoint's AI Assistant for SWOT analysis for FREE here

2. gather the right participants.

Pull people from all departments to participate in the analysis. Your entire leadership team should be involved because they can provide a broad view of the organization and offer insight into the competitive landscape.

But having lots of different perspectives is beneficial, and that means including leaders from every department—and anyone else you think might have valuable input. The more diverse the group, the better insights you’ll generate.

Not all ideas will make it to the final list, but it’s important to consider them all.

3. List your strengths

Ask the group: What are we good at? How are we better than our competitors? These are broad questions, but in the beginning stages of your discussion, you should accept all answers.

Examine these questions in relation to the Balanced Scorecard perspectives. For the fictional company Upward Airlines, the discussion might look like this:

Financial strengths: What is our most reliable source of financial growth? Is it our service destinations? A large fleet size? Our customer loyalty program?
Customer strengths: Where is our customer growth coming from? Is it due to excellent service ratings or low prices? Why are customers choosing us over our competitors?
Internal strengths: What do we do very well as an organization? Are our operations easily scalable? Do we have an exceptionally high employee retention rate? How complex is our maintenance program?
Learning & growth strengths: Where do we excel as far as our employees are concerned? Is it our compensation model? Could it be our workforce development program? Are people coming or leaving because of our culture?

Having considered these questions for your own organization, you might come up with multiple responses in some categories. Below is a sample of the strengths portion of the SWOT analysis for Upward Airlines:

TIP: As mentioned above, you can use ClearPoint to simplify this and the remaining information-gathering steps. Rather than asking everyone to brainstorm simultaneously in a conference room, give people time to review relevant data (also housed in ClearPoint) that would help identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as potential opportunities. Participants can then input their thoughts into ClearPoint, link to key supporting metrics, and even add contextual information surrounding their thought process.

Doing your analysis within a single tool not only makes it easier to collect the information but also gives you the visibility to see how the various components that make up your SWOT might be linked. Further, ClearPoint has a discussion feature that allows users to @ mention other users, and thus facilitates conversations about your strengths and weaknesses.

Watch our video to learn about ClearPoint Strategy's proven Success Framework

4. list your weaknesses.

Ask the group: What are we not good at? Where can we grow? What are we lacking? The Upward Airlines discussion might look like this:

Financial weaknesses: What is our biggest financial weakness? Our destinations are all in the U.S., which may be limiting our growth. Or, we know that a large number of new competitors entering the market are decreasing our market share. Do we have challenges with debt or credit?
Customer weaknesses: Where do our customers think we need to improve? This could be related to frequently canceled flights, lost baggage, complexity of the reservation process, or cleanliness, for instance.
Internal weaknesses: What do we do poorly? Are we slow at handling customer complaints? Are our maintenance costs above industry average? What about plane utilization?
Learning & growth weaknesses: What are our biggest challenges with employees? Is our staff security training proving ineffective, or is there a negative perception of the organizational culture? Do our employee surveys reveal low engagement?

5. Identify your opportunities

Ask the group: Where do we see big (and small) possibilities for our organization? What do we see happening in the future?

‍ The Upward Airlines group might discuss the following:

Financial opportunities: What is our biggest opportunity to improve our finances? This might mean taking advantage of federal loans in a time of crisis (like COVID-19) or adopting specific technology to lower costs. Maybe there is an opportunity to purchase a weaker competitor.
Customer opportunities: Where could we dramatically improve with our customers? Could we enhance our online interface? Can we create and promote new standards of cleanliness? What about finding new ways to engage with customers when travel opportunities are low?
Internal opportunities: What processes will drive us well into the future if we could improve upon them? Adopting certain climate initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint, for instance, will make us more eco-friendly (and, by extension, more appealing to customers). Maybe now is the time to upgrade a reservation or pricing system.
Learning & growth opportunities: What opportunities do we have to leverage staff? For example, do we have cross-training opportunities? Could we make a few tweaks to improve our culture and thus our retention?

Upward Airlines’ opportunities for the foreseeable future might be:

6. Identify your potential threats

Ask the group: What do we see as a threat? What obstacles do we anticipate? What is changing that could hurt us? As a travel-related company in a tough economy, Upward Airlines might uncover a number of potential threats:

Financial threats: What threats could seriously impact our financial health? This could be low-cost competitors, ongoing global health issues that prevent travel, or rising oil costs.
Customer threats: What is our biggest concern about our customers? Has a competitor created a more attractive loyalty program? Is our number of business clients trending downward?
Internal threats: What current areas of our business might harm us later? Is a contract dispute imminent that could disrupt business? Is a potential merger or acquisition on the horizon?
Learning & growth threats: What threatens the people within your organization? This could be anything from instability in our customer support department to staff member departures to a department-specific pushback against new technology.

The external threats deemed most imminent for Upward Airlines might be:

7. Examine your matrix for connections

In looking at your SWOT matrix, do some of your strengths naturally support the identified opportunities? If you eliminate weaknesses, would that present additional opportunities?

At this point, we recommend running a “brown paper exercise”—print your SWOT matrix in large size, and ask employees to add post-it notes in any or all of the matrix’s four boxes if they feel the leadership team missed something. (You can also ask employees to add their names next to their suggestions so leadership can follow up with them.) Not only is this exercise great for inter-office discussion, but it also gives leaders the chance to consider opinions from staff in the field.

Done correctly, the SWOT analysis is another valuable tool in your toolbox for improving business performance and minimizing threats and weaknesses going forward. It can also prompt organizations to be more innovative with their strategy—new ideas may emerge that leadership would not normally have considered without such a thorough examination of the business from all angles.

Complement Your SWOT With A PEST Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a way of understanding and evaluating all facets of your company so you’re in a better position to make decisions about the future. But there are also external factors that will impact your company’s future; these things are beyond your control but still require consideration as you map out your strategy.

That’s why many organizations choose to complement a SWOT analysis with a PEST analysis—together, they provide a complete picture of your business environment for effective strategic planning.

PEST stands for political, economic, social, and technological—the four key areas outside your business that are likely to impact it. These factors tend to play out over long time frames. An economic slowdown, for instance, could take years to resolve, but you can take action to address staff training issues fairly quickly.

Thus, a PEST analysis is more valuable than SWOT when it comes to formulating longer-term plans and business strategies.

Our recommendation is to do a SWOT analysis first, followed by a PEST analysis, to get a complete picture of the business landscape.

Companies with written strategic plans in place see a 30% faster growth rate Draft yours with ClearPoint’s expert tools. We make strategy planning simple and effective.

What Should You Do with Your SWOT Analysis?

Congratulations! Hopefully, you understand your business a little better after completing your SWOT analysis; now it’s time to put those insights to good use. Your ideas on how to use your strengths and overcome your weaknesses should inform your strategy.

Developing a strategy is in and of itself a big step. It involves defining objectives for your company to move toward, creating priority initiatives (projects) to help make them a reality, and identifying measures to make sure the strategy is unfolding the way it should.

Our Upward Airlines SWOT analysis example, for instance, lists four weaknesses:

High maintenance costs
Fewer direct travel routes than our competitors
No uniform project management system in place
Below-average employee satisfaction

Some of these weaknesses are easier to address than others, such as improving employee satisfaction and your project management practices. Others, like the lack of direct travel routes, may be difficult to address in a time when airlines are still recovering from the COVID-19 fallout and profits are low. Similarly, you want to continue supporting your current strengths.

While you shouldn’t let your excellent training program lapse, it needn’t be a focus if you expect the number of new hires over the next year to be low. However, improving your virtual communication practices will most likely prove to be beneficial moving forward.

Therefore, the Upward Airlines SWOT analysis above might drive strategy in the following ways:

An objective might be to “improve employee satisfaction”; to accomplish that goal, the company might initiate new projects that include reevaluating the benefits plan or starting a surveying program for employee feedback.
An objective might be to “make flying as safe as possible for customers”; to reach that goal, they might implement a new cleaning regimen and increase communication with customers about new procedures.
An objective might be to increase revenue by 10%; to help achieve that goal they might create a problem-solving team whose purpose is to reevaluate the current capacity strategy and recommend changes to offset the rising cost of fuel.

Make sure there is a clear and strong link between your SWOT analysis and your strategy map. For example, if you’re a for-profit organization, your financial perspective will be the top priority—build your analysis into your map in a manner that drives those finances in the right direction.

Maybe your SWOT analysis foretold an opportunity to hit a new line of business or forecast that a line of business would dry up. Your strategy needs to reflect that information.

If you’re using ClearPoint for strategy execution, you can make sure the projects you initiate as a result of your SWOT will actually have an impact by a) creating links within the software to show clear connections between projects and objectives, and b) tracking progress on your goals and initiatives over time.

That way, you’ll be able to see if, for example, your revised capacity plan positively impacted revenue in any substantial way—or if it had a negative effect on the bottom line. If you’re continuously monitoring progress, you’ll be able to adjust your course of action in a timely manner if needed.

Those insights will also be useful for your next SWOT analysis.

Real-world SWOT Analysis Examples

Still uncertain as to how your team can use the information produced by a SWOT analysis? We reached out to the business community to ask about their experiences with SWOT.

Their answers, listed below, show that SWOT can be applied to any number of business activities, from developing a long-term overall strategy to launching campaigns, new products, and more.

Seize New Opportunities

"We focus on the opportunity aspect of SWOT. We are always looking to find new ways of growing our company, and we use this analysis to show us areas where our business might thrive. A SWOT analysis showed us how important it would be for us to partner with over 15 different insurance companies, so that we can freely match each client with whichever one is best for them. Most companies like ours only work with one or two companies, but we have seized the opportunity, and we are growing because of it."

‍ —Anthony Martin of Choice Mutual

"We took action to understand that it's not enough to simply have a great product; we need to make sure our customers know how it can help them. By servicing the market, we found ways to add value for our customers and build relationships with them by providing helpful resources on our website and offering free trials. This has helped us to focus on creating and providing value to our customers, rather than just trying to get them to buy our product. As a result, we've created a much more sustainable and successful business."

‍ —Diana Stepanova of Monitask

"One of the most important things that came out of our SWOT analysis was identifying untapped opportunities. After changing the game with our magnetic lashes, we saw a gap in the acrylic nail market. Through a SWOT analysis, we have realized our strength in reimagining highly used beauty products and making them better for the consumer. That has opened up even more opportunities to revolutionize the billion-dollar beauty industry."

‍ —Ann McFerran of Glamnetic

"Our SWOT analysis revealed that we could create additional revenue streams by white-labeling our writing service and marketing it to other agencies. We offered interested parties discounts on our already-competitive rates, which made working with us very attractive and profitable for both sides. This allowed us to effectively double the size of our market. Most of the work we do now is for our agency partners, which means we can spend less time chasing sales and instead focus on ensuring quality in our service."

‍ —Milo Cruz of Freelance Writing Jobs

“The best insight I gained from performing a SWOT analysis of my organization is that we are very good at what we do and have a lot of growth potential. One action that we took because of this insight was to expand our product line. We now offer various [photo] backdrops, including some specifically designed for events. We have also started marketing to new customers, which has helped us grow our business.At first, we didn't think that expanding our product line would help us much, but it has been one of the best things we've done for our business. It's enabled us to attract new customers and grow our sales. Marketing to new customers has also been helpful in terms of growing our business. These actions have made us a more prosperous and well-rounded company. "

‍ —Kate Zhang of Kate Backdrop

Evaluate Your Competitive Advantage

"The SWOT analysis helped us identify potential opportunities that were unique to us in terms of reach. This allowed us to focus on key areas and strategies that would allow us to be the go-to choice of a specific market."Knowing where your company stands in relation to its competitors is crucial for developing strategies that will give you a competitive advantage. It also gives you insight into your unique opportunities that your competitors may not have. This is the kind of information that can help you make decisions that will take your company to the next level."

‍ —Linda Shaffer of Checkr

"There are many roofing contractors competing for business, and it can be difficult for customers to understand what sets us apart from the rest. In order to address this issue, we have revamped our marketing materials to better communicate our unique selling points.As a result, potential customers can now see that our company is the best choice for quality roofing services, and we have experienced a significant increase in sales."

‍ —Marty Ford of BulletpRoof Roof Systems Ltd.

“Owners of startups and small businesses need, but cannot find, a system to start, market, operate, or finance a business. Through our SWOT analysis, we noticed that our competitors left important questions and needs unanswered. For example, a competitor might help you set up a corporation, but have nothing for you after that.You started the business, but now need marketing, operational, or finance help. We strive to be the entrepreneur's best friend by giving you the needed tools."

‍ —James Chittenden of One Click Advisor ‍

Learn Business Strengths

"SWOT analysis was incredibly helpful when it came to understanding the strengths of my business. I was then able to play to those strengths and build on them.One strength was integrity—my business is always honest—and I’ve built that honesty into our brand."

‍ —Keith Terrell of Backpacks Global

"Overcoming our weaknesses doesn't mean we are not keeping an eye on our existing strengths. If there's one thing SWOT analysis has taught us, it’s that we should treasure the things that keep our company strong by being innovative. Our positive attributes can become a weakness if we refuse to adapt to changes. Consistently monitoring our strengths has allowed us to hit all our targets and go beyond our goals. As a result, we have outperformed our competitors by always bringing something new to the table."

‍ —Adam Garcia of The Stock Dork

Address Future Business Challenges

"Two of the issues we identified were the great resignation and the recession. Knowing them in advance gave us plenty of time to make the necessary changes (like retaining your best employees by offering new benefits—remote work, PTO, and unlimited growth opportunities). We also changed our inventory strategy and made sure we had enough to counter the price increases, shortages, and demand.These strategy changes helped us limit the adverse effects of the recession, optimize our stocks, and make sure all our orders were fulfilled on time. The changes were also able to help us retain our best employees; thus, we never even had any problems throughout the great resignation."

‍ —Michael Perry of Fitness Fixed Gear ‍

Shore up Weaknesses

"In our SWOT analysis, we were able to pinpoint areas where our employees may be lacking the skills they needed to succeed in our company. We decided to offer free online learning to our workers to help them add to their skill set.This has helped us not only improve the skill sets of our employees, but it has also increased employee retention. Employees want to stay loyal to a company that helps them grow."

‍ —Mark Daoust of Quiet Light

"Prior to the SWOT analysis, I had always approached marketing from a product-centric perspective; however, the SWOT analysis made me realize that we needed to focus more on customer-centric marketing. We needed to connect with our target audience and build relationships with them.As a result, we've made some changes to our marketing approach, and I believe that these changes will help us to be more successful in the long run."

‍ —Jacob Villa of Authority

"We have always prided ourselves on having good client relationships, but this exercise showed us that we needed to have strong client relationships. We have studied our weakness (why we have monthly policy cancellations or non-renewals) and the results showed that we need to focus on building and maintaining client relationships. After doing that, we have seen a significant increase in the average tenure of our clients and customer satisfaction scores."

‍ —Loran Marmes of Medicare Solutions Team

"One threat we encountered in our business was the sudden and huge dip in our customer satisfaction score, which has never happened in the past five years. To resolve this issue and ensure we eliminate the threat that's harming our relationship with customers, we allocated time to engage with our employees and immediately gave them intensive customer service training.Our urgent action to eradicate this threat has helped our business bounce back and we’ve regained the trust of our customers. It has also taught us to listen to customer feedback seriously and do our best to live up to their expectations."

‍ —Jake Smith of Absolute Reg LTD

See Different Perspectives

"A successful SWOT analysis encourages discussion from employees of different levels, from operational, to managerial, to administrative level. By doing this, everyone contributes their thoughts on the status and standing of the company—it’s not just about how one person sees it. This way, all aspects of the business are considered and addressed from all levels."

‍ —Corey Morgan of Kind Home Painting

SWOT Analysis Best Practices

To create the most accurate and effective SWOT analysis, we recommend the following best practices:

Encourage open and honest conversation. Create an environment that encourages candidness. That might mean using sticky notes to gather anonymous feedback, rather than having people raise their hand to state a company weakness out loud.
Promote collaboration. Have everyone write all their ideas on sticky notes, put them on a board, and then walk through them as a group. Combining similar ideas might help people to think of more. You might also consider breaking up a large group into smaller groups of three or four employees to encourage the sharing of ideas.
Vote to narrow down ideas. The group will generate lots of ideas. You want to take them all into consideration, but you don’t need to keep every idea; this should be a fairly high-level exercise. Rank the top 10 and list those to focus on. And remember—the SWOT isn’t intended to project 10 years down the road; it should look at where you are now and in the very near future.
To identify external factors, look at the competition. In addition to a PEST analysis, another way to identify external threats and opportunities is to look at your competitors. What opportunities are they currently after, and can you use that to your advantage? What threats are they currently facing, and how does that apply to you?
Be specific when describing internal factors. For example, “brand image” can be both a strength and a weakness, depending on how you word it. Be specific in your descriptions; ultimately, that specificity will also help you define the right measures and benchmark your performance over time.
Keep emotion out of the room. This exercise should be objective, not subjective. If a statement can’t be backed up with facts, it doesn’t count.
Try to make your resulting strategy “weatherproof.” Current threats may include the possibility of more political and economic turmoil, but these kinds of obstacles tend to be much more complicated than those you’d see in most SWOT analyses. While it may be difficult to address them fully, try to develop a strategy that will bolster your organization during hard times. For example, a retail store might consider creating an objective to ensure its online and in-person stores perform equally well should either avenue be cut off due to external circumstances.

Download Our Strategic Planning Tools—Including our SWOT Analysis Template

If you need some guidance with this process, download our free strategic planning booklet. It includes eight of the most popular templates to build strategic plans, including a SWOT analysis template.

The strategic plan you develop from your SWOT analysis is powerful, so once you’ve created it, don’t let it sit! Use strategy execution software like ClearPoint to track your progress over time.

‍ Read more about strategy execution and how you can use ClearPoint for tracking here. ‍

Ready to take action? tart planning for the future now!

Optimize Your Strategic Planning with ClearPoint Strategy Software

Ready to streamline your SWOT analysis and take your strategic planning to the next level? ClearPoint Strategy is here to guide you. Our comprehensive software solution simplifies the SWOT analysis process, ensuring you gain valuable insights and effectively integrate them into your strategic plan.

Book a personalized demo with our experts and see how our software can help you efficiently conduct SWOT analyses, track progress, and achieve your strategic goals.

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Swot analysis faq:, what are the 4 dimensions of swot analysis.

The four dimensions areL strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

When and where should you develop a SWOT analysis?

You need a few uninterrupted hours to conduct a strong SWOT analysis. You should conduct a SWOT analysis around the same time of your strategy refresh. Include key leaders within the company to get comprehensive insights on the current state of your business.

How do you use your SWOT analysis?

Use your SWOT analysis to influence your strategic plan! Don't let the insights from your SWOT analysis just sit in a shelf. Learn how to utilize your strengths to achieve your long-term goals, and make plans to strengthen your weaknesses.

Why should I conduct a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis offers many benefits for your organization. It allows you to better understand your business. By taking the time to identify where your company succeeds, and where they struggle, you can create plans to leverage your strengths and mitigate risks in your weaknesses.

What's the difference between a SWOT and PESTEL analysis?

A SWOT analysis is conducted to assess internal factors that affect your business. A PESTEL analysis focuses solely on external factors.

Ted Jackson

Ted is a Founder and Managing Partner of ClearPoint Strategy and leads the sales and marketing teams.

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Master the Art of Writing an Impressive Swot Analysis Essay

Are you struggling with how to get started with your recent assignment of writing a swot analysis essay? It sure is a tough ask from students dealing with such an essay for the first time.

But you don’t have to worry as this blog post serves as a comprehensive guide to help students grasp the fundamentals of writing a SWOT analysis essay. It breaks down the intricate components, providing a step-by-step approach that simplifies understanding and implementation for learners.

As you should know. the swot analysis essay has four crucial elements, such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strengths and weaknesses pertain to internal aspects, focusing on what an entity excels at and where it lacks. Opportunities and threats, on the other hand, address external factors, exploring potential avenues for growth and the challenges that may hinder progress.

This blog post is filled with amazing guidelines from professional paper writers . Hence, it’s an opportunity even for new students to master some tricks and tips for writing a good swot analysis essay.

Table of Contents

What is a Swot Analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic tool used by organizations to evaluate their internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats. It’s all about looking at the good and bad stuff inside the organization and the good and bad stuff outside of it, to get a clear picture of where things are at and where they could go in the future. This analysis is super helpful for coming up with plans, making smart choices, and using the good stuff to deal with any weaknesses or outside threats.

The importance of a SWOT analysis lies in its ability to provide a clear overview of an organization’s or project’s current state, facilitating better strategic planning and decision-making. By identifying strengths and weaknesses, an organization can leverage its advantages while addressing areas that require improvement. Furthermore, recognizing external opportunities allows for proactive steps to capitalize on them, while acknowledging threats helps in developing contingency plans to minimize their impact. Overall, conducting a swot analysis enables a more focused and informed approach toward achieving goals and maintaining competitiveness.

For students seeking assistance in crafting a swot analysis essay or assignment, relying on professional paper writing help can be beneficial. Expert writers can offer guidance on structuring the analysis, gathering relevant data, and ensuring a comprehensive evaluation of the subject matter.

Why Should Students Learn to Write a Swot Analysis Essay?

Learning to write a SWOT analysis essay equips students with valuable skills applicable across various fields and industries. Understanding how to conduct a SWOT analysis develops critical thinking, analytical, and decision-making abilities. It enables students to assess an organization’s or a project’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, fostering a deeper comprehension of strategic planning and evaluation.

Mastering the skill of writing a SWOT analysis essay allows students to:

Develop Analytical Skills

Analyzing internal and external factors cultivates a structured approach to problem-solving and decision-making. This skill is transferable to many scenarios beyond business settings.

Enhance Strategic Thinking

Recognizing and evaluating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats fosters strategic thinking. It encourages students to consider multiple perspectives and anticipate potential outcomes, which is vital in making informed decisions.

Improve Communication

Writing a SWOT analysis essay involves organizing thoughts and presenting information coherently. This skill enhances communication abilities, allowing students to convey complex ideas effectively.

Prepare for Real-world Applications

SWOT analysis is widely used in business, marketing, project management, and other fields. Acquiring proficiency in this area prepares students for future professional endeavors where strategic evaluation and planning are crucial.

Steps to Writing a Good Swot Analysis Essay

Here’s a step-by-step approach to learning how to write a swot analysis essay that even the experts working with the most experienced coursework writing service would follow.

Step 1: Choose a Subject

Select an organization, a project, a product, or a specific situation to analyze. Clearly define the scope and objectives of your analysis.

Step 2: Identify Strengths

List the internal factors that give the subject a competitive advantage or positive attributes.
Consider unique resources, skills, market position, or any other advantageous aspects.

Step 3: Pinpoint Weaknesses

Evaluate internal factors that hinder the subject’s performance or pose challenges.
Identify areas for improvement such as lack of resources, inefficient processes, or any other internal limitations.

Step 4: Explore Opportunities

Analyze external factors that could positively impact the subject.
Look for emerging trends, market shifts, technological advancements, or any other external opportunities that can be leveraged.

Step 5: Assess Threats

Identify external factors that could potentially harm the subject’s success.
Consider competition, economic factors, regulatory changes, or any other external threats that could negatively impact the subject.

Step 6: Organize the Information

Create a structured format to present your analysis. This could be a table, a matrix, or a written narrative divided into sections for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Step 7: Analyze Relationships

Explore how strengths can counteract weaknesses or how opportunities can offset threats. Highlight connections between internal and external factors.

Step 8: Provide Examples and Evidence

Support each point with specific examples, data, or anecdotes to strengthen your analysis and provide credibility to your arguments.

Step 9: Formulate Recommendations

Based on the analysis, propose strategies or actions to capitalize on strengths, address weaknesses, exploit opportunities, and mitigate threats.

Step 10: Conclusion

Summarize the key findings of your SWOT analysis and emphasize the significance of the insights obtained. Conclude with a clear takeaway or recommendation.

good swot analysis essay vs bad swot analysis essay

How Can Students Get Better at Writing a Swot Analysis Essay?

Students can enhance their skills in writing a SWOT analysis essay through several methods:

Practice Regularly

Engage in consistent practice by analyzing various subjects using the SWOT framework. This repetition hones analytical skills and strengthens the ability to identify relevant factors.

Study Examples

Review a well-written swot analysis paper example or report to understand the structure, language, and depth of analysis. Analyze how to present a swot analysis and how to conclude it well. Going through examples will also allow you to understand the swot analysis format.

Gather Comprehensive Information

Ensure a thorough understanding of the subject being analyzed. Gather data from reliable sources to support each point in the analysis, enhancing its credibility.

Seek Feedback

Share your SWOT analysis drafts with peers, instructors, or mentors. Constructive feedback helps identify areas for improvement and enhances the quality of the analysis.

Utilize Resources

Utilize academic resources, online materials, textbooks, and guidance from professionals or writing centers to grasp different approaches to conducting and presenting SWOT analyses.

Critical Thinking Development

Practice critical thinking by challenging assumptions, considering alternative perspectives, and evaluating the significance of each factor within the analysis.

Refinement through Revision

Revise and refine the analysis multiple times, focusing on clarity, coherence, and depth. Each revision contributes to a more polished and comprehensive SWOT analysis.

Apply Real-life Scenarios

Practice applying the SWOT framework to real-life situations or current events. This helps in understanding the practical applications of the analysis beyond theoretical knowledge.

Stay Updated

Keep abreast of industry trends, market changes, and relevant developments to conduct a more accurate and up-to-date SWOT analysis.

Time Management

Allocate sufficient time for each phase of the analysis, from research to drafting and revising. Effective time management ensures a more thorough and well-constructed SWOT analysis.

Final Thoughts

In this blog post, we’ve focused on a systematic approach to learn the process of crafting a compelling SWOT analysis essay for students. We wanted to make it easier for students to write a good swot analysis essay, so we broke it down into clear steps. Our goal was to give them a complete guide that covers everything they need to know. We want students to see how important it is to understand both their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats in the outside world. Our approach is all about teaching them the skills they need to make smart decisions and plan strategically.

This guide gives students a step-by-step way to write a SWOT analysis essay. First, you have to choose a topic and figure out what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are. Then, the guide helps you analyze and organize your info. It’s important to connect what’s happening inside and outside the topic when making recommendations. By the end, you’ll have a well-rounded and smart analysis.

For students seeking additional support and guidance in crafting their SWOT analysis essays, our essay writing service provides a valuable resource, enhancing their understanding and proficiency in SWOT analysis writing.

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Your Full Guide on How to Write a SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is one of those tools that you'll come across in any field. For example, it's used to define a product's competitive advantage, create a strategic plan for a business, and gain insights into consumer behavior.

But it's not just businesses that benefit from this technique. Personal SWOT analysis helps people plan their careers in the most optimal way possible, too.

As versatile as it is, SWOT analysis is not at all complicated. That's why its adoption rate is through the roof. And that's why you should learn how to take advantage of it, whether for an assignment or not.

To help you out with that, let's rely on our rich writing services experience and use it to break down in detail:

What a SWOT analysis is;
How it's applied in business strategies and marketing efforts;
How to use the SWOT framework for any task;
4 real-world SWOT analysis examples.

What Is SWOT Analysis, Exactly?

Any SWOT analysis template contains four sections, presented in a two-by-two matrix:

Strengths – your inherent qualities, resources, or skills that set you apart from the rest;
Weaknesses – whatever is or may be stopping you or the business from performing well;
Opportunities – external factors that you can use to your advantage to become more competitive;
Threats – external factors that may harm your performance in the short or long run.

Internal and External Factors in SWOT Analysis

Each section represents a list of factors. These sections can be grouped into two broader categories: internal and external factors.

Internal factors – Strengths and Weaknesses in the first row – are inherent to you or the company. However, you can also do something about them if need be. Think of your skills as a professional if you're working on a personal SWOT analysis, for example.

External factors – Opportunities and Threats in the second row – aren't under your personal or the company's control. But they have an impact on you or the business, nonetheless. Once-in-a-lifetime pandemics, inflation, or industry trends are good examples here.

Positive vs Negative Factors

Another way to think about the SWOT matrix is by juxtaposing negative and positive factors :

Strengths and Opportunities can help you or the company achieve your goal or succeed at a project. So, they represent positive factors.
Weaknesses and Threats can negatively impact your progress and have to be mitigated. They're negative factors.

Why is SWOT Analysis Important?

Now that the question ‘What is a SWOT Analysis?’ is answered, you must have several others on your mind. So let's answer them one by one.

Who Should Do a SWOT Analysis?

Businesses of all sizes and in all industries can benefit from SWOT analyses. So, whether you're a prospective entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a C-level executive, this technique will be a useful arrow in your quiver.

You can also benefit from conducting a personal SWOT analysis. It would be best if you did it when looking for a job or facing a major life decision.

Why Should You Do a SWOT Analysis?

At its core, SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique. It's meant to help you organize all the factors. That, in turn, enables you to gain key insights into where you stand and how you can move from point A to point B.

How does it help you in strategic planning, exactly? The SWOT matrix shows you:

Which strengths you should maximize and emphasize;
Which weaknesses you should minimize and keep at bay;
Which opportunities you can take advantage of;
Which threats you should look out for and counter.

All of this leads to one outcome: better, more informed decision-making. Plus, SWOT analysis is notorious for challenging your assumptions as long as everyone involved is straightforward and honest in their answers.

What Can SWOT Framework Be Used For?

Now, let's talk about real-life practical applications of this technique. Here are three SWOT analysis examples:

Choosing the business model for a new enterprise;
Creating a break-even analysis and a business plan;
Analyzing the company's quarterly and annual performance.

At a personal level, you can also conduct your own SWOT analysis to:

Increase your chances of landing a job;
Position yourself for getting a promotion;
Understand what needs to change in your life in general.

Stay on Top of Your SWOT Analysis Homework!

Turn to our professional writers for your upcoming assignment.

How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis in 8 Steps

SWOT analysis isn't complicated to conduct, and that's why they are so popular. Yet, it might be a wrong first impression.

A good SWOT analysis can take hours and should involve multiple people in a brainstorming session. It should also be as objective as possible – which can be harder to achieve than it seems.

So, how do you use a SWOT analysis – and get a quality result for your strategic decision-making process? Here's your step-by-step SWOT analysis example that you can use as a guide. If you need a custom writing -address to professionals.

1. Determine Your Goal

Starting brainstorming without a goal means getting into the SWOT analysis blind. And your SWOT matrix will be useless – or misleading – in the long run.

For example, depending on your goal, the same factor can be a key strength or an irrelevant note. For example, if you aim to reach the 18-25 demographic in your marketing campaign, your active presence on TikTok will be a great asset. But if you need to find a way to attract more quality candidates in the hiring process, the TikTok presence will only help you a little.

So, zero in on what you want to achieve with this SWOT analysis. This can be a decision you or the company have to make – for example, whether to launch a certain product line. Your goal can also be to solve a certain problem or to create/reassess your strategy.

2. Do Your Research

Your research wouldn't be complete if you googled ‘What is a SWOT analysis?’ You'll need a lot of data during your brainstorming session. If you have it, you'll avoid guessing your company's or your own strengths or external threats related to your goal.

What Data to Look For

Your research should consist of two parts:

Internal research . You'll need every piece of information on your or the company's performance to pinpoint the internal factors in SWOT analysis. That can include financial, sales, marketing, and other reports with key metrics.
External research . Gather the data on your competitors, the market, the company's position and market share, and the industry as a whole. This data will be the basis for assessing your opportunities and threats.

There's one footnote, though. Depending on the goal, you'll need different data sets. So, focus on relevant data.

3. Pinpoint Your or Your Organization's Strengths

Now, it's time for the brainstorming session. If you're doing a SWOT analysis for a business, go with it: bring the right people to the table, virtual or not. It'll help you get a more objective, realistic, and complete matrix.

Start with the internal factors, namely your internal strengths: they're always easier to home in on.

Need a SWOT analysis example of a company's strengths? Here are five of them:

Outstanding customer service with a high satisfaction rate;
Strong financial performance;
The first-mover advantage;
Positive brand attributes;
Strong technical expertise in the field.

5 Questions to Ask

Here are five questions to kick off your brainstorming and help you discover your company's strengths – or your own:

What do you or the company do well?
What are your strongest assets?
Is there something only you or the company do?
What is your competitive edge?
What do customers appreciate about the company?

4. Zero in on Your or Your Company's Weaknesses

Now, it's time to move on to a more difficult part of assessing your internal factors: your weaknesses. Take a hard look at your or the business's performance and define what could be going better. Don't try to embellish the truth here!

Keep in mind: there are some weaknesses that you can eliminate and some others that you can only mitigate.

Looking for weaknesses SWOT analysis examples for students who run their businesses? Here are five of them:

Poor brand recognition among the target audience;
Suboptimal employee productivity;
Limited resources, human or otherwise;
Lack of intellectual property for key technologies;
Long delivery times.

To explore your personal or business weaknesses, ask the following five questions:

What do your competitors beat you at?
What do customers complain about?
What is holding back your or the company's success?
What resources do you or the company lack?
What are the gaps in your internal business processes?

5. Identify External Opportunities

Before you can exploit opportunities, you need to identify them in your SWOT analysis – and determine which ones are worth using, too.

For that, you'll need to turn to the external environment research you've done. Then, look at that data and pinpoint which trends or events you could take advantage of.

Need a SWOT analysis example or two here? Take a look at these three business opportunities:

New markets emerging within the industry;
New advertising channels rising to prominence;
Particular customer needs that remain underserved.

4 Questions to Ask

If you don't know how to start zeroing in on opportunities, start with these four questions:

Are there ways to gain useful resources you don't have or have little of?
Are there any technological advancements that can help you mitigate your weaknesses?
Are there any new or overlooked opportunities that you can exploit?
How can the current economy or market trends be of use to you?

6. Home in on Potential Threats

Time to move on to the final part of a standard SWOT analysis: threats. These external trends and events can get in your way – or already are.

If you're working on a personal SWOT analysis, threats can include:

High competition for the job you're after;
Potential layoffs due to a financial crisis.

If you're conducting one for a large company or a small business, negative external factors can include:

New emerging competitors, direct or indirect;
New regulations that can entail considerable additional costs for the business;
Unfavorable investment climate.

3 Questions to Ask

If you need a push in the right direction, here are three questions to help you zero in on the threats:

Who are your competitors, and what is their market position?
What is the state of the economy, industry, and market? Are they in decline?
Are there any new regulations that can harm the business?

7. Review Your SWOT Analysis Matrix

Having a good SWOT analysis right after brainstorming is impossible. You need to review every factor you've written down and edit the list. Leave only the elements that truly matter – and make them more specific if required.

3 Things to Pay Attention to

There are some common caveats that you can overlook if you need to be more careful during this step. Here are three of them to avoid:

Factors that aren't specific enough – clarify or cross them out;
Factors that aren't evidence-based – find proof or get rid of them;
Factors that are over- or underestimated – have a fresh pair of eyes to look at the list.

8. Decide on the Solution

Once you've finished filling out and editing your SWOT analysis template, your work is only beginning. Now, you need to take your SWOT matrix and use your findings to find the solution to your key issue.

4 Questions to Pose

Here are four questions to guide you in your solution-seeking:

How can you maximize your strengths? Which ones should be the top priority to boost?
How can you mitigate or eliminate your weaknesses? Which ones should be taken care of first?
Which opportunities should you take advantage of? Which ones will pay off the most?
Which threats can do the most harm? How can you limit their impact?

4 SWOT Analysis Examples for Students

Need something more than just a SWOT analysis template? Let's see how this tool can be applied to practice with these four real-world SWOT analysis examples for students.

But if these sample SWOT analysis still don't help you, don't panic just yet. You can always order an essay online and let professionals worry about it. And no, it won't cost you a small fortune!

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What is SWOT Analysis?

How to conduct a swot analysis, what is a swot analysis used for, additional resources, swot analysis.

A framework to understand and analyze a company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

SWOT stands for S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats. A SWOT analysis is a framework to help assess and understand the internal and external forces that may create opportunities or risks for an organization.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. They are characteristics of a business that give it a relative advantage (or disadvantage, respectively) over its competition.

Opportunities and threats, on the other hand, are external factors. Opportunities are elements of the external environment that management can seize upon to improve business performance (like revenue growth or improved margins).

Threats are elements of the external environment that may endanger a firm’s competitive advantage (s), or even its ability to operate as a going concern (think regulatory issues or technological disruption).

Key Highlights

SWOT is used to help assess the internal and external factors that contribute to a company’s relative advantages and disadvantages.
A SWOT analysis is generally used in conjunction with other assessment frameworks, like PESTEL and Porter’s 5-Forces.
Findings from a SWOT analysis will help inform model assumptions for the analyst community.

Strengths may be any number of areas or characteristics where a company excels and has a competitive advantage over its peers. Advantages may be more qualitative in nature and therefore difficult to measure (like a great corporate culture, strong brand recognition, proprietary technology, etc.), or they may be more quantitative (like best-in-class margins, above-average inventory turnover, category-leading return on equity, etc.).

Weaknesses are areas or characteristics where a business is at a competitive disadvantage relative to its peers. Like strengths, these can also be more qualitative or quantitative. Examples include inexperienced management, high employee turnover, low (or declining) margins, and high (or excessive) use of debt as a funding source.

Opportunities

The “Opportunities” section should highlight external factors that represent potential growth or improvement areas for a business. Consider opportunities like a growing total addressable market (TAM) , technological advancements that might help improve efficiency, or changes in social norms that are creating new markets or new sub-segments of existing markets.

Threats are external forces that represent risks to a business and its ability to operate. The categories tend to be similar to the “Opportunities” section, but directionally opposite. Consider examples like an industry in decline (which is the same as a decreasing TAM), technological innovation that could disrupt the existing business and its operations, or evolving social norms that make existing product offerings less attractive to a growing number of consumers.

A SWOT analysis is rarely completed in isolation; it generally makes up one part of a broader business analysis. And while it is itself an assessment framework, a SWOT analysis is also an effective tool to help summarize other findings.

For example, an analyst can’t really assess a company’s strengths and weaknesses without first understanding the business and its industry. They may wish to leverage other tools and frameworks in order to accomplish this, including:

Hax’s Delta Model – This will help to understand competitive positioning.
Ansoff’s Matrix – This will help visualize the relative risk of a management team’s growth strategies.
Financial ratio analysis – This will help identify trends (year-over-year), as well as a firm’s relative performance (using benchmarking data).

The same is true for external factors – opportunities and threats. It’s nearly impossible to understand these without first considering:

The industry life cycle – Does the business operate in a growing, mature, or declining industry? This itself informs both opportunities and threats.
An analysis of the broader business environment or the industry itself – Think frameworks like PESTEL or Porter’s 5 Forces.

A SWOT analysis is used differently by different stakeholders.

For example, a management team will use the framework to support strategic planning and risk management. SWOT helps them visualize the firm’s relative advantages and disadvantages in order to better understand where and how the organization should allocate resources, either towards growth or risk reduction initiatives.

The analyst community, on the other hand, may seek to understand (and quantify) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in order to assess the business more completely.

Consider that findings from a SWOT analysis may help inform model assumptions among analysts. It could be an equity researcher trying to estimate the fair market value of a company’s shares , or a credit analyst looking to better understand a borrower’s creditworthiness.

In general, the SWOT framework is considered by many to be one of the most useful tools available for strategic planning and business analysis.

Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to SWOT Analysis. To keep learning and advancing your career, the following CFI resources will be helpful:

FREE Analyzing Growth Drivers & Business Risks Course
Ansoff Matrix
Business Risk
PESTEL Analysis
Industry Analysis
See all management & strategy resources
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Introduction to SWOT Analysis

A look at arguably the most famous strategic analysis tool – the SWOT Analysis 📝

Table of Contents

What is a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT Analysis is a framework for identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is often presented a 2×2 matrix and can be applied to any business and industry, from non-profit charities through to large corporate entities.

The structure of the grid means the top row looks at all internal issues, both positive and negative, while the bottom evaluates the external factors. Similarly, the left of the grid is positive, while the right of the grid is negative.

A well thought out SWOT will provide you with new opportunities to go for as well as ensuring threats to your business are mitigated or eliminated.

When should you do a SWOT?

It’s best practise to perform a SWOT whenever you are going to make key strategic decisions or if you are reviewing your overall strategy. A SWOT can be a useful tool for companies to evaluate their own position or the position of individual departments, products, or services.

What are the advantages of SWOT?

SWOT as a framework has several advantages:

It’s simple to understand and use
There’s an easy process to follow through (see below)
You can do it on your own, as a team in person, or as a group remotely
It can provide a good analysis of both internal and external issues

What are some of the limitations of SWOT?

While it’s a great tool, SWOT can be mishandled:

SWOT itself is not an analysis, but a framework for capturing analysis conclusions
It has no actions within the framework
It is easy to be too broad or not factual enough, which will disrupt the SWOT
It doesn’t contain a way to weight the importance of the elements of the SWOT

How do you make the most out of SWOT?

It’s likely you’ll have heard of SWOT before, it’s one of the few strategic frameworks to enter the lexicon for most people in business. If done well, a SWOT can be one of the most powerful and revealing frameworks.

There are three golden rules to follow before you begin your SWOT:

Prepare for the session by getting feedback from clients
Talk to your employees and get their thoughts on the business
Always be honest in the SWOT – these are internal tools to help you

What preparation should be done before a SWOT?

While no preparation is required for a SWOT, it is helpful to have knowledge of:

Current client relationships
Example good case studies of sales and service
Example bad case studies of sales and service
Latest news in your sector
Any competitive activity your aware of
Employee feedback

If in a group, these can be shared via an email beforehand or presented on the day.

What’s the best medium for running a SWOT session?

SWOT works best when put together by a cross-disciplined team either physically or virtually. You need a mix of employees with different experiences and market knowledge to ensure you capture all aspects of the business.

What are the risks of completing a SWOT?

The main risk when completing a SWOT is biased or subjective classification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It’s therefore rally important to ensure you have input into your SWOT from different people within a company.

A SWOT will also only provide a list, there’s no concept of prioritisation or the risk/reward of each opportunity. It’s important that further evaluation is done on your opportunities and actions, using either a TOWS or the SFA Matrix.

What is an example SWOT?

Many example SWOTs can be found in Lucidity such as:

How often is SWOT updated?

It is best practise to review your SWOT on a quarterly basis, this helps provide you with context on if you’re succeeding towards maximising your opportunities and minimising your threats, while also taking into account of your changing landscape.

What is the difference between TOWS and SWOT?

The big difference between a TOWS and a SWOT is the latter explores the relationships between the different parts of a SWOT, examining how they link up and complement each other. You can find out more by reading our introduction to TOWS Analysis .

What other tools work well with SWOT?

You should look to develop a PESTLE Analysis or Five Forces Analysis , both of which focus outside your organisation, alongside your SWOT. This will inform and develop your thinking, leading to an improved SWOT Analysis.

What is the best way to communicate a SWOT?

Many companies communicate their SWOT in full, ensuring the teams are aware of the different internal and external factors that impact thee business. A good SWOT will have been composed with input from across the business.

Alternatively, for a positive spin on SWOT, look at the SOAR framework . It takes the Strengths and Opportunities of SWOT and includes the Aspirations and desired Results for a business, often resulting in a more positive communication message for the wider company.

Can a SWOT be used on an individual?

Yes – the SWOT framework is sometimes used to map out an individual or personal list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It’s not designed for that use but can be effective depending on the person. It’s worth also looking at Locke’s Goal Setting Theory for more on individual goal setting.

Who invented SWOT?

SWOT is commonly credited to a researcher called Albert Humphrey from SRI, an independent research centre in the 1960s/1970s.

Where can I find a guide to completing my SWOT?

Ready to create your own SWOT? You can find it in our strategy software today and check out Ultimate Guide to SWOT Analysis , or watch our video guide to SWOT .

Where can I find out more information on SWOT?

You can check out the Ultimate Guide to SWOT Analysis to find everything you’d ever need about SWOT, including tips, examples, how-tos and more!

Advanced Tips on how to Leverage SWOT for a Growth Strategy

SWOT analysis is a well known strategy tool – probably the first strategy tool most people come into contact with without realizing its to do with strategic analysis.

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How to Build a Business Growth Strategy

To tackle the challenges that come with building a successful strategy for organizational growth, it’s essential to start by knowing how to build a business growth strategy effectively.

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How to kick-start your strategy execution by communicating the plan to your people so that everyone gets on board 🚀

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OKR Meaning: What Are ‘Objectives and Key Results?’

This ultimate guide will help you understand everything you need to know about OKR – meaning, benefits, and several examples. 📈

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An Introduction To SWOT Analysis

Emily Scott

SWOT Analysis

In today's business scenario, SWOT analysis plays a pivotal role, much of the business decision depends on this analysis. The concept was coined and developed by Prof. Albert Humphrey, who led the research at Stanford University; the study aimed to identify the reason behind the failure of corporate planning.

SWOT analysis is the procedure by which an organization takes the initiative to identify its internal strength and weaknesses and external factors like opportunities and threats. SWOT matrix stands for strength, weakness, opportunity, and danger.

It is an essential tool used by managers and a few other tools to analyze the positive and negative aspects of a business or an organization. Many prominent researchers have the opinion that SWOT analysis alone is meaningless. And if you go deep into the subject, you will realize that the conclusion drawn is true and empirical.

Overview of SWOT

The swot matrix.

If you are a marketer or an avid learner, you must learn about SWOT as an integral part of strategic analysis. It has diverse implications; you can use it to analyze any number of things; we sometimes use it to explore our blog and our company as a whole!

SWOT is also known as the TOWS Matrix; have a look at the graph below:

SWOT/TOWS Matrix

S – O Strategy is the Strategy that utilizes the strength of a company to pursue the present opportunities.
W – O Strategy is to pursue the opportunity by overcoming the company's weakness.
S – T Strategy identifies the areas where the company can utilize its strengths to overcome the weaknesses in the business environment.
W – T Strategy is the most defensive Strategy among all systems. Over here, the company will focus on minimising weaknesses and avoiding threats.

SWOT can be used in just about any field; it is a tool most used in strategic analysis by strategists because it gets conversions; Let me list a few of its applications:

It can be used to find solutions to any of your business problems.
It can help clarify the direction and support the decision-making process by identifying the opportunity and keeping in check the threat the business faces or might face soon.
It can assist in determining the changes required in the business .

SWOT is an essential tool, be it any business, organization or institution; it has implications everywhere; Swot Analysis is a part of Marketing .

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CIO strategy

SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis)

Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor
Mary K. Pratt
Linda Tucci, Industry Editor -- CIO/IT Strategy

What is a SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis is a framework for identifying and analyzing an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. These words make up the SWOT acronym.

The primary goal of SWOT analysis is to increase awareness of the factors that go into making a business decision or establishing a business strategy. To do this, SWOT analyzes the internal and external environment and the factors that can impact the viability of a decision.

Businesses commonly use SWOT analysis, but it is also used by nonprofit organizations and, to a lesser degree, individuals for personal assessment. SWOT is also used to assess initiatives, products or projects. As an example, CIOs could use SWOT to help create a strategic business planning template or perform a competitive analysis.

The SWOT framework is credited to Albert Humphrey, who tested the approach in the 1960s and 1970s at the Stanford Research Institute. SWOT analysis was originally developed for business and based on data from Fortune 500 companies. It has been adopted by organizations of all types as a brainstorming aid to making business decisions.

When and why should you do a SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis is often used either at the start of, or as part of, a strategic planning process. The framework is considered a powerful support for decision-making because it enables an organization to uncover opportunities for success that were previously unarticulated. It also highlights threats before they become overly burdensome.

SWOT analysis can identify a market niche in which a business has a competitive advantage . It can also help individuals plot a career path that maximizes their strengths and alert them to threats that could thwart success.

This type of analysis is most effective when it's used to pragmatically recognize and include business issues and concerns. Consequently, SWOT often involves a diverse cross-functional team capable of sharing thoughts and ideas freely. The most effective teams would use actual experiences and data -- such as revenue or cost figures -- to build the SWOT analysis.

Elements of a SWOT analysis

As its name states, a SWOT analysis examines four elements:

Internal attributes and resources that support a successful outcome, such as a diverse product line, loyal customers or strong customer service.
Internal factors and resources that make success more difficult to attain, such as a weak brand, excessive debt or inadequate staffing or training.
External factors that the organization can capitalize on or take advantage of, such as favorable export tariffs, tax incentives or new enabling technologies.
External factors that could jeopardize the entity's success, such as increasing competition, weakening demand or an uncertain supply chain.

A SWOT matrix is often used to organize the items identified under each of these four elements. The matrix is usually a square divided into four quadrants, with each quadrant representing one of the specific elements. Decision-makers identify and list specific strengths in the first quadrant, weaknesses in the next, then opportunities and, lastly, threats.

Organizations or individuals doing a SWOT analysis can opt to use various SWOT analysis templates. These templates are generally variations of the standard four-quadrant SWOT matrix.

How to do a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis generally requires decision-makers to first specify the objective they hope to achieve for the business, organization, initiative or individual. From there, the decision-makers list the strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats.

Various tools exist to guide the decision-making process . They frequently provide questions that fall under each of the four SWOT elements.

For example, participants might be asked the following to identify their company's strengths: "What do you do better than anyone else?" and "what advantages do you have?" To identify weaknesses, they may be asked "where do you need improvement?" Similarly, they'd run through questions such as "what market trends could increase sales?" and "where do your competitors have market share advantages?" to identify opportunities and threats.

Example of a SWOT analysis

The end result of a SWOT analysis should be a chart or list of a subject's characteristics. The following is an example of a SWOT analysis of an imaginary retail employee:

Strengths: good communication skills, on time for shifts, handles customers well, gets along well with all departments, physical strength, good availability.
Weaknesses: takes long smoke breaks, has low technical skill, very prone to spending time chatting.
Opportunities: storefront worker, greeting customers and assisting them to find products, helping keep customers satisfied, assisting customers post-purchase and ensuring buying confidence, stocking shelves.
Threats: occasionally missing time during peak business due to breaks, sometimes too much time spent per customer post-sale, too much time in interdepartmental chat.

How to use a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis should be used to help an entity gain insight into its current and future position in the marketplace or against a stated goal.

Organizations or individuals using this analysis can see competitive advantages, positive prospects as well as existing and potential problems. With that information, they can develop business plans or personal or organizational goals to capitalize on positives and address deficiencies.

Once SWOT factors are identified, decision-makers can assess if an initiative, project or product is worth pursuing and what is needed to make it successful. As such, the analysis aims to help an organization match its resources to the competitive environment.

A SWOT analysis can be used to assess and consider a range of goals and action plans , such as the following:

the creation and development of business products or services;
making hiring, promotion or other human resources decisions;
evaluating and improving customer service opportunities and performance;
setting business strategies to improve competitiveness or improve business performance; and
making investments in technologies, geographical locations or markets.

SWOT analysis is similar to PEST analysis, which stands for political, economic, social and technological. PEST analysis lets organizations analyze external factors that affect its operations and competitiveness.

SWOT analysis pros and cons

Among the advantages of using a SWOT approach are the following:

The analysis creates a visual representation of the factors that are most likely to impact whether the business, project, initiative or individual can successfully achieve an objective.
By involving experienced cross-discipline team members, a SWOT analysis can encourage many different perspectives and approaches.
Such diversity can allow a SWOT analysis to flesh out each element and expose creative ideas and overlooked problems that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Although a SWOT snapshot is important for understanding the many dynamics that affect success, the analysis does have limits, such as the following:

The analysis may not include all relevant factors because some strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats can easily be overlooked or misunderstood.
The input for each element can often be empirical or subjective and give a skewed perspective.
Because it only captures factors at a particular point in time and doesn't allow for how those factors could change over time, the insight SWOT offers can have a limited shelf life.

Learn how to assess an organization's needs and implement a technology strategy in this step-by-step guide.

Continue Reading About SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis)

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> Business Analytics

An Introduction to SWOT Analysis

Bhumika Dutta
Sep 13, 2022

Businesses must periodically assess their performance and maintain things current. This guarantees effectiveness and aids in the early detection of issues. You may accomplish this by using a technique called SWOT analysis.

An examination of your company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT), is a planning procedure that aids in overcoming obstacles and identifying potential new business prospects.

In this article, we will understand what SWOT analysis is.

What is SWOT analysis ?

The four pillars of a SWOT analysis are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your business. It may be used for several initiatives within a single department or for a whole business or organization.

SWOT analysis can be used to assess how well a specific project, like an online advertising campaign, is performing in comparison to initial projections. They are most frequently used at the organizational level to assess how closely a business is aligned with its growth trajectories and success benchmarks.

A SWOT analysis' main goal is to assist enterprises in fully understanding all the variables that go into choosing a course of action. During the research, to determine the reasons why business planning repeatedly failed, Albert Humphrey of the Stanford Research Institute developed this strategy in the 1960s. Since its inception, SWOT analysis has emerged as one of the most effective tools for company owners to launch and expand their enterprises.

Why is SWOT Analysis Important ?

In other words, what's happening within and outside of your firm is examined in a SWOT analysis together with internal and external issues (We will learn about these factors later). As a result, although some of these elements will be in your control, others won't. In any instance, once you've identified, noted, and considered as many variables as you can, the best course of action will become more obvious.

It may assist you in challenging dubious presumptions and identifying perilous blind spots about the functioning of your corporation. It may provide fresh perspectives on where your company is right now and assist you in creating the ideal plan for any circumstance if you utilize it thoughtfully and in collaboration. For instance, you could be fully aware of some of your organization's strengths, but you might not be aware of just how dependable they are until you list them alongside vulnerabilities and dangers.

Similarly, you probably have valid worries about some of your company's vulnerabilities, but by doing a methodical examination, you can uncover a previously unnoticed potential that might more than makeup for them.

What are the characteristics of a SWOT analysis ?

When writing a SWOT analysis , people often make a table with four columns, listing each aspect that will have an influence side by side for comparison. Although they should correlate because opportunities and threats are ultimately connected, strengths and weaknesses rarely match the opportunities and threats listed exactly. Here are some characteristics of SWOT analysis .

Internal Factors:

Strengths include things like a strong brand , a devoted client base, a solid balance sheet, innovative technology, etc. that indicate what a firm excels at and what sets it apart from the competitors. For instance, a hedge fund could have created a proprietary trading method that outperforms the market. The next step is for it to determine how to exploit the results to draw in additional investors.

Weaknesses are areas or traits where a company is less competitively advantageous than its competitors. A bad brand, higher-than-average turnover, high levels of debt, an insufficient supply chain, or a lack of cash are examples of areas where the company has to improve in order to stay competitive. These might be more qualitative or quantitative, just like strengths. Examples include inept management, significant staff turnover, poor (or deteriorating) margins, and a large (or excessive) reliance on debt as a source of revenue.

The SWOT analysis's strengths and weaknesses categories may learn a lot from what goes on within the firm. Here are some examples of often thought-of internal factors:

Financial capacity (funding, sources of income, and investment opportunities)

Physical assets (location, facilities, and equipment)

Human resources (employees, volunteers, and target audiences)

Access to copyrights, patents, trademarks, and natural resources

Current procedures (including departmental hierarchies, staff programs, and software systems like CRM and accounting software)

Possible inquiries for listing internal elements include:

What are we doing well? (Strength)

What is our best quality? (Strength)

What are our critics, exactly?

Which of our product lines performs the worst?

External Factors:

Every business, organization, and person is influenced and affected by external pressures. It is crucial to observe and record each of these characteristics, regardless of whether they are tied to an opportunity (O) or a threat (T) directly or indirectly.

Opportunities:

The "Opportunities" section needs to draw attention to outside elements that might help a firm expand or develop. A rising total addressable market (TAM), technology developments that might lead to increased efficiency, or modifications in societal norms that are generating new markets or new sub-segments of current markets are a few examples of opportunities to take into account.

Threats are outside elements that pose threats to an organization's operations. Though oriented in the other way, the categories frequently resemble those in the "Opportunities" section. Examples include a declining industry (which is the same as a declining TAM), technical advancements that may disrupt an already existing company's operations, or changing societal standards that make current product offers less appealing to an increasing proportion of customers.

For a corporation to succeed, external and internal elements must both be taken into account. Typically, external influences are things that neither you nor your business can control. Examples include the following:

Commercial trends (new products, technology advancements, and shifts in audience needs)

Monetary patterns (local, national and international financial trends)

Funding (donations, legislature, and other sources)

Demographics

Relations with partners and suppliers

Regulations in politics, the environment, and the economy

To begin a list of external causes, you can consider asking:

What trends are clearly visible in the market? (Opportunity)

What racial or ethnic groups are we not focusing on? (Opportunity)

How many rivals are there, and what is their market share? (Threat)

Exist any recent rules that could adversely affect our business or our products? (Threat)

External and Internal Factors (source)

How to write a SWOT analysis ?

Making lists is a part of SWOT analysis, but there is also so much more! Your research and thought process as you start to develop one list, such "Strengths," will inspire ideas for the other categories (Weaknesses, Opportunities or Threats). And if you compare these lists side by side, you'll probably uncover links and inconsistencies that you should draw attention to and investigate. You'll discover that you regularly switch between your lists. So group your four lists together in one view to simplify and improve the work.

Then you need to draw a SWOT analysis matrix. The two by two grid of a SWOT matrix has a square for each of the four SWOT factors. There are a few questions at the beginning of each segment to get your mind working. Some of these issues have already been covered on this site.

SWOT analysis table (source)

How to conduct a SWOT Analysis ?

In most cases, a SWOT analysis is part of a larger company study and is seldom carried out independently. An helpful technique to assist summarize additional results is a SWOT analysis, which is also an evaluation framework in and of itself.

For instance, without initially comprehending the firm and its industry, an analyst cannot effectively evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of a company. To do this, they might want to make use of additional frameworks and tools, such as:

The Hax's Delta Model will aid in comprehension of competitive posture.

Ansoff's Matrix will make it easier to see how risky a management team's growth plans are related to one another.

Financial ratio analysis will show trends (year-over-year) and a firm's performance in comparison to other companies (using benchmarking data).

For external elements, including opportunities and risks, the same holds true. It's practically difficult to comprehend them without first taking into account:

Does the company operate in a sector that is maturing, in decline, or in growth? Threats and opportunities are themselves informed by this.

An examination of the industry or the general business climate Consider models such as PESTLE or Porter's Five Forces .

What are the Benefits of SWOT Analysis ?

You could be asking if SWOT analysis are applicable to or even doable for smaller businesses and organizations if you're a marketer or small business owner. Even for the tiniest of firms, doing a SWOT analysis has several advantages, even if there is undoubtedly a resource overhead involved. Here are some benefits of SWOT analysis :

Aerial perspective:

One benefit of completing a thorough SWOT analysis is the exceptional chance it offers to learn more about how your company functions. Conducting a SWOT analysis enables you to obtain a wider, bird's-eye view of your firm and the position it has in your industry. It's all too easy to become lost in the weeds of the day-to-day operations of your organization.

Enhance certain initiatives and marketing.

Another advantage of SWOT assessments is that they may be used in a variety of situations in addition to providing an overview of your company. SWOT assessments may be used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of planned content production, an upcoming advertising campaign, or even whether your organization should be present at a trade show or other industry event.

Create concrete road maps.

Naturally, it almost goes without saying that performing a SWOT analysis enables you to pinpoint your company's strengths, areas for growth, as well as the possibilities and dangers it faces. However, doing a SWOT analysis gives you the chance to not only identify these problems but also to create and put into action concrete timetables and roadmaps for viable remedies. Developing financial plans, determining recruiting requirements, and other mid- to long-term strategic planning can all benefit from this.

What are the SWOT analysis mistakes ?

Here are some mistakes that people can make while performing SWOT analysis :

Making very large lists. As you continue, ask yourself if your ideas are realistic.

Being evasive with your lists. Be detailed to give future conversations more direction.

Not recognizing flaws. Make sure to inquire about the experiences of clients and coworkers.

Not anticipating what will happen ahead. It's simple to have a good concept without following it through to its logical conclusion. Always take into account how they will be used.

Being irrational. Don't make elaborate plans for prospects that don't yet exist. For instance, the export market you've been targeting could become available eventually, but the trade talks to make it possible might take years.

Relying just on a SWOT analysis. There is no doubt that SWOT analysis is beneficial but the outcomes will be stronger if you combine it with other planning tools (like SOAR, TOWS, or PEST).

Where can we use a SWOT analysis ?

Various stakeholders apply a SWOT analysis in different ways.

Before deciding on any new strategies for your company, you may evaluate its existing position using a SWOT analysis. Learn what's working well and what isn't doing so well. Consider your desired destination, potential routes there, and any obstacles. After considering all four SWOT factors, you should work to strengthen your advantages, improve your weaknesses, fend off threats, and seize every chance. In reality, you'll probably have to choose from a variety of options.

A management team may utilize the framework to assist risk management and strategic planning, for instance. In order to better understand where and how the business should deploy resources, either towards growth or risk reduction projects, SWOT helps them comprehend the firm's relative advantages and disadvantages.

On the other side, the analyst community can try to comprehend (and quantify) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and dangers in order to evaluate the firm more thoroughly.

The SWOT framework is generally regarded as one of the best resources for strategic planning and company analysis.

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SWOT analysis: Examples and templates

A SWOT analysis helps you identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for a specific project or your overall business plan. It’s used for strategic planning and to stay ahead of market trends. Below, we describe each part of the SWOT framework and show you how to conduct your own.

Whether you’re looking for external opportunities or internal strengths, we’ll walk you through how to perform your own SWOT analysis, with helpful examples along the way.

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a technique used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for your business or even a specific project. It’s most widely used by organizations—from small businesses and non-profits to large enterprises—but a SWOT analysis can be used for personal purposes as well.

While simple, a SWOT analysis is a powerful tool for helping you identify competitive opportunities for improvement. It helps you improve your team and business while staying ahead of market trends.

What does SWOT stand for?

SWOT is an acronym that stands for:

Opportunities

When analyzed together, the SWOT framework can paint a larger picture of where you are and how to get to the next step. Let’s dive a little deeper into each of these terms and how they can help identify areas of improvement.

Strengths in SWOT refer to internal initiatives that are performing well. Examining these areas helps you understand what’s already working. You can then use the techniques that you know work—your strengths—in other areas that might need additional support, like improving your team’s efficiency .

When looking into the strengths of your organization, ask yourself the following questions:

What do we do well? Or, even better: What do we do best?

What’s unique about our organization?

What does our target audience like about our organization?

Which categories or features beat out our competitors?

Example SWOT strength:

Customer service: Our world-class customer service has an NPS score of 90 as compared to our competitors, who average an NPS score of 70.

Weaknesses in SWOT refer to internal initiatives that are underperforming. It’s a good idea to analyze your strengths before your weaknesses in order to create a baseline for success and failure. Identifying internal weaknesses provides a starting point for improving those projects.

Identify the company’s weaknesses by asking:

Which initiatives are underperforming and why?

What can be improved?

What resources could improve our performance?

How do we rank against our competitors?

Example SWOT weakness:

E-commerce visibility: Our website visibility is low because of a lack of marketing budget , leading to a decrease in mobile app transactions.

Opportunities in SWOT result from your existing strengths and weaknesses, along with any external initiatives that will put you in a stronger competitive position. These could be anything from weaknesses that you’d like to improve or areas that weren’t identified in the first two phases of your analysis.

Since there are multiple ways to come up with opportunities, it’s helpful to consider these questions before getting started:

What resources can we use to improve weaknesses?

Are there market gaps in our services?

What are our business goals for the year?

What do your competitors offer?

Example SWOT opportunities:

Marketing campaign: To improve brand visibility, we’ll run ad campaigns on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Threats in SWOT are areas with the potential to cause problems. Different from weaknesses, threats are external and ‌out of your control. This can include anything from a global pandemic to a change in the competitive landscape.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to identify external threats:

What changes in the industry are cause for concern?

What new market trends are on the horizon?

Where are our competitors outperforming us?

Example SWOT threats:

New competitor: With a new e-commerce competitor set to launch within the next month, we could see a decline in customers.

SWOT analysis example

One of the most popular ways to create a SWOT analysis is through a SWOT matrix—a visual representation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The matrix comprises four separate squares that create one larger square.

A SWOT matrix is great for collecting information and documenting the questions and decision-making process . Not only will it be handy to reference later on, but it’s also great for visualizing any patterns that arise.

Check out the SWOT matrix below for a simple example. As you can see, each of the quadrants lists out the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

[Inline illustration] SWOT analysis (Example)

When used correctly and effectively, your matrix can be a great toolkit for evaluating your organization’s strengths and weaknesses.

How to do a SWOT analysis, with examples

A SWOT analysis can be conducted in a variety of ways. Some teams like to meet and throw ideas on a whiteboard, while others prefer the structure of a SWOT matrix. However you choose to make your SWOT analysis, getting creative with your planning process allows new ideas to flow and results in more unique solutions.

There are a few ways to ensure that your SWOT analysis is thorough and done correctly. Let’s take a closer look at some tips to help you get started.

Tip 1: Consider internal factors

Often, strengths and weaknesses stem from internal processes. These tend to be easier to solve since you have more control over the outcome. When you come across internal factors, you can start implementing improvements in a couple of different ways.

Meet with department stakeholders to form a business plan around how to improve your current situation.

Research and implement new tools, such as a project management tool , that can help streamline these processes for you.

Take immediate action on anything that can be changed in 24 hours or less. If you don’t have the capacity, consider delegating these items to others with deadlines.

The way you go about solving internal factors will depend on the type of problem. If it’s more complex, you might need to use a combination of the above or a more thorough problem management process.

Tip 2: Evaluate external factors

External factors stem from processes outside of your control. This includes competitors, market trends, and anything else that’s affecting your organization from the outside in.

External factors are trickier to solve, as you can’t directly control the outcome. What you can do is pivot your own processes in a way that mitigates negative external factors.

You can work to solve these issues by:

Competing with market trends

Forecasting market trends before they happen

Improving adaptability to improve your reaction time

Track competitors using reporting tools that automatically update you as soon as changes occur

While you won’t be able to control an external environment, you can control how your organization reacts to it.

Let’s say, for instance, that you’re looking to compete with a market trend. For example, a competitor introduced a new product to the market that’s outperforming your own. While you can’t take that product away, you can work to launch an even better product or marketing campaign to mitigate any decline in sales.

Tip 3: Hold a brainstorming session

Brainstorming new and innovative ideas can help to spur creativity and inspire action. To host a high impact brainstorming session, you’ll want to:

Invite team members from various departments. That way, ideas from each part of the company are represented.

Be intentional about the number of team members you invite, since too many participants could lead to a lack of focus or participation. The sweet spot for a productive brainstorming session is around 10 teammates.

Use different brainstorming techniques that appeal to different work types.

Set a clear intention for the session.

Tip 4: Get creative

In order to generate creative ideas, you have to first invite them. That means creating fun ways to come up with opportunities. Try randomly selecting anonymous ideas, talking through obviously bad examples, or playing team building games to psych up the team.

Tip 5: Prioritize opportunities

Now, rank the opportunities. This can be done as a team or with a smaller group of leaders. Talk through each idea and rank it on a scale of one through 10. Once you’ve agreed on your top ideas based on team capabilities, competencies, and overall impact, it’s easier to implement them.

Tip 6: Take action

It’s all too easy to feel finished at this stage —but the actual work is just beginning. After your SWOT analysis, you’ll have a list of prioritized opportunities. Now is the time to turn them into strengths. Use a structured system such as a business case , project plan, or implementation plan to outline what needs to get done—and how you plan to do it.

SWOT analysis template

A SWOT analysis template is often presented in a grid format, divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant represents one of the four elements.

Use this free SWOT analysis template to jump-start your team’s strategic planning.

Identify the strengths that contribute to achieving your objectives. These are internal characteristics that give you an advantage. Some examples could be a strong brand reputation, an innovative culture, or an experienced management team.

Next, focus on weaknesses. These are internal factors that could serve as obstacles to achieving your objectives. Common examples might include a lack of financial resources, high operational costs, or outdated technology.

Move on to the opportunities. These are external conditions that could be helpful in achieving your goals. For example, you might be looking at emerging markets, increased demand, or favorable shifts in regulations.

Lastly, let's address threats. These are external conditions that could negatively impact your objectives. Examples include increased competition or potential economic downturns.

Why is a SWOT analysis important?

A SWOT analysis can help you improve processes and plan for growth. While similar to a competitive analysis , it differs because it evaluates both internal and external factors. Analyzing key areas around these opportunities and threats will equip you with the insights needed to set your team up for success.

A SWOT analysis isn’t only useful for organizations. With a personal SWOT analysis, you can examine areas of your life that could benefit from improvement, from your leadership style to your communication skills. These are the benefits of using a SWOT analysis in any scenario.

1. Identifies areas of opportunity

One of the biggest benefits of conducting an analysis is to determine opportunities for growth. It’s a great starting point for startups and teams that know they want to improve but aren’t exactly sure how to get started.

Opportunities can come from many different avenues, like external factors such as diversifying your products for competitive advantage or internal factors like improving your team’s workflow . Either way, capitalizing on opportunities is an excellent way to grow as a team.

2. Identifies areas that could be improved

Identifying weaknesses and threats during a SWOT analysis can pave the way for a better business strategy.

Ultimately, learning from your mistakes is the best way to excel. Once you find areas to streamline, you can work with team members to brainstorm an action plan . This will let you use what you already know works and build on your company’s strengths.

3. Identifies areas that could be at risk

Whether you have a risk register in place or not, it’s always crucial to identify risks before they become a cause for concern. A SWOT analysis can help you stay on top of actionable items that may play a part in your risk decision-making process.

It may be beneficial to pair your SWOT analysis with a PEST analysis, which examines external solutions such as political, economic, social, and technological factors—all of which can help you identify and plan for project risks .

When should you use a SWOT analysis?

You won’t always need an in-depth SWOT analysis. It’s most useful for large, general overviews of situations, scenarios, or your business.

A SWOT analysis is most helpful:

Before you implement a large change—including as part of a larger change management plan

When you launch a new company initiative

If you’d like to identify opportunities for growth and improvement

Any time you want a full overview of your business performance

If you need to identify business performance from different perspectives

SWOT analyses are general for a reason—so they can be applied to almost any scenario, project, or business.

SWOT analysis: Pros and cons

Although SWOT is a useful strategic planning tool for businesses and individuals alike, it does have limitations. Here’s what you can expect.

The simplicity of SWOT analysis makes it a go-to tool for many. Because it is simple, it takes the mystery out of strategic planning and lets people think critically about their situations without feeling overwhelmed.

For instance, a small bakery looking to expand its operations can use SWOT analysis to easily understand its current standing. Identifying strengths like a loyal customer base, weaknesses such as limited seating space, opportunities like a rising trend in artisanal baked goods, and threats from larger chain bakeries nearby can all be accomplished without any specialized knowledge or technical expertise.

Versatility

Its versatile nature allows SWOT analysis to be used across various domains. Whether it’s a business strategizing for the future or an individual planning their career path, SWOT analysis lends itself well.

For example, a tech start-up in the competitive Silicon Valley landscape could employ SWOT to navigate its pathway to profitability. Strengths might include a highly skilled development team; weaknesses could be a lack of brand recognition; opportunities might lie in emerging markets; and threats could include established tech giants.

Meaningful analysis

SWOT excels in identifying external factors that could impact performance. It nudges organizations to look beyond the present and anticipate potential future scenarios.

A retail company, for example, could use SWOT analysis to identify opportunities in e-commerce and threats from changing consumer behavior or new competitors entering the market. By doing so, the company can strategize on how to leverage online platforms to boost sales and counteract threats by enhancing the customer experience or adopting new technologies.

Subjectivity and bias

The subjective nature of SWOT analysis may lead to biases. It relies heavily on individual perceptions, which can sometimes overlook crucial data or misinterpret information, leading to skewed conclusions.

For example, a manufacturing company might undervalue the threat of new entrants in the market due to an overconfidence bias among the management. This subjectivity might lead to a lack of preparation for competitive pricing strategies, ultimately affecting the company's market share.

Lack of prioritization

SWOT analysis lays out issues but falls short on prioritizing them. Organizations might struggle to identify which elements deserve immediate attention and resources.

For instance, a healthcare provider identifying numerous opportunities for expansion into new services may become overwhelmed with the choices. Without a clear way to rank these opportunities, resources could be spread too thinly or given to projects that do not have as much of an impact, leading to less-than-ideal outcomes.

Static analysis

Since SWOT analysis captures a snapshot at a particular moment, it may miss the evolving nature of challenges and opportunities, possibly leading to outdated strategies. An example could be a traditional retail business that performs a SWOT analysis and decides to focus on expanding physical stores, overlooking the growing trend of e-commerce. As online shopping continues to evolve and gain popularity, the static analysis might lead to investment in areas with diminishing returns while missing out on the booming e-commerce market trend.

SWOT analysis FAQ

What are the five elements of swot analysis.

Traditionally, SWOT stands for its four main elements: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. However, a fifth essential element often overlooked is "actionable strategies." Originally developed by Albert Humphrey, SWOT is more than just a list—it's a planning tool designed to generate actionable strategies for making informed business decisions. This fifth element serves to tie the other four together, enabling departments like human resources and marketing to turn analysis into actionable plans.

What should a SWOT analysis include?

A comprehensive SWOT analysis should focus on the internal and external factors that affect your organization. Internally, consider your strong brand and product line as your strengths, and maybe your supply chain weaknesses. Externally, you'll want to look at market share, partnerships, and new technologies that could either pose opportunities or threats. You should also account for demographics, as it helps in market targeting and segmentation.

How do you write a good SWOT analysis?

Writing an effective SWOT analysis begins with research. Start by identifying your strengths, like a strong brand, and your weaknesses, like a small human resources department. Following that, look outward to find opportunities, possibly in technological advancement, and threats, like fluctuations in market share. Many businesses find it helpful to use a free SWOT analysis template to structure this information. A good SWOT analysis doesn't just list these elements; it integrates them to provide a clear roadmap for making business decisions.

What are four examples of threats in SWOT analysis?

New technologies: Rapid technological advancement can make your product or service obsolete.

Supply chain disruptions: Whether due to natural disasters or geopolitical tensions, an unstable supply chain can seriously jeopardize your operations.

Emerging competitors: New players entering the market can erode your market share and offer alternative solutions to your customer base.

Regulatory changes: New laws or regulations can add costs and complexity to your business, affecting your competitiveness.

How do you use a SWOT analysis?

Once you've completed a SWOT analysis, use the results as a decision-making aid. It can help prioritize actions, develop strategic plans that play to your strengths, improve weaknesses, seize opportunities, and counteract threats. It’s a useful tool for setting objectives and creating a roadmap for achieving them.

Plan for growth with a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis can be an effective technique for identifying key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Understanding where you are now can be the most impactful way to determine where you want to go next.

Don’t forget, a bit of creativity and collaboration can go a long way. Encourage your team to think outside of the box with 100+ team motivational quotes .

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SWOT Analysis: How To Do One [With Template & Examples]

Published: October 05, 2023

As your business grows, you need a roadmap to help navigate the obstacles, challenges, opportunities, and projects that come your way. Enter: the SWOT analysis.

man conducting swot analysis for his business

This framework can help you develop a plan to determine your priorities, maximize opportunities, and minimize roadblocks as you scale your organization. Below, let’s go over exactly what a SWOT analysis is, a few SWOT analysis examples, and how to conduct one for your business.

When you’re done reading, you’ll have all the inspiration and tactical advice you need to tackle a SWOT analysis for your business.

What is a SWOT analysis? Importance of a SWOT Analysis How to Write a Good SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis Examples How to Act on a SWOT Analysis

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that puts your business in perspective using the following lenses: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Using a SWOT analysis helps you identify ways your business can improve and maximize opportunities, while simultaneously determining negative factors that might hinder your chances of success.

While it may seem simple on the surface, a SWOT analysis allows you to make unbiased evaluations on:

Your business or brand.
Market positioning.
A new project or initiative.
A specific campaign or channel.

Practically anything that requires strategic planning, internal or external, can have the SWOT framework applied to it, helping you avoid unnecessary errors down the road from lack of insight.

Free SWOT Analysis Template

A free SWOT analysis template, plus other helpful market research resources.

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Importance of a SWOT Analysis

You’ve noticed by now that SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The framework seems simple enough that you’d be tempted to forgo using it at all, relying instead on your intuition to take these things into account.

But you shouldn’t. Doing a SWOT analysis is important. Here’s why.

SWOT gives you the chance to worry and to dream.

A SWOT analysis is an important step in your strategic process because it gives you the opportunity to explore both the potential risks and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead. You’re giving yourself the space to dream, evaluate, and worry before taking action. Your insights then turn into assets as you create the roadmap for your initiative.

For instance, when you consider the weaknesses and threats that your business may face, you can address any concerns or challenges and strategize on how to mitigate those risks. At the same time, you can identify strengths and opportunities, which can inspire innovative ideas and help you dream big. Both are equally important.

SWOT forces you to define your variables.

Instead of diving head first into planning and execution, you’re taking inventory of all your assets and roadblocks. This process will help you develop strategies that leverage your strengths and opportunities while addressing and mitigating the impact of weaknesses and threats.

As a result, you'll gain a comprehensive understanding of your current situation and create a more specific and effective roadmap. Plus, a SWOT analysis is inherently proactive. That means you'll be better equipped to make informed decisions, allocate resources effectively, and set realistic goals.

SWOT allows you to account for mitigating factors.

As you identify weaknesses and threats, you’re better able to account for them in your roadmap, improving your chances of success.

Moreover, accounting for mitigating factors allows you to allocate your resources wisely and make informed decisions that lead to sustainable growth. With a SWOT analysis as a guide, you can confidently face challenges and seize opportunities.

SWOT helps you keep a written record.

As your organization grows and changes, you’ll be able to strike things off your old SWOTs and make additions. You can look back at where you came from and look ahead at what’s to come.

In other words, SWOT analyses serve as a tangible history of your progress and provide a reference point for future decision-making. With each update, your SWOT analysis becomes a living document that guides your strategic thinking and helps you stay agile and adaptable in an ever-changing business landscape.

By maintaining this written record, you foster a culture of continuous improvement and empower your team to make data-driven decisions and stay aligned with your long-term vision.

Parts of a SWOT Analysis

Conducting a SWOT analysis will help you strategize effectively, unlock valuable insights, and make informed decisions. But what exactly does a SWOT analysis include?

Let’s explore each component: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Your strengths are the unique advantages and internal capabilities that give your company a competitive edge in the market. A strong brand reputation, innovative products or services, or exceptional customer service are just a few examples. By identifying and capitalizing on your strengths, you can foster customer loyalty and build a solid foundation for growth.

No business is flawless. Weaknesses are areas where you may face challenges or fall short of your potential. It could be outdated processes, skill gaps within the team, or inadequate resources. By acknowledging these weaknesses, you can establish targeted initiatives for improvement, upskill your team, adopt new technologies, and enhance your overall operational efficiency.

Opportunities are external factors that can contribute to your company's progress. These may include emerging markets, technological advancements, changes in consumer behavior, or gaps in the market that your company can fill. By seizing these opportunities, you can expand your market reach, diversify your product offerings, forge strategic partnerships, or even venture into untapped territories.

Threats are external factors that are beyond your control and pose challenges to your business. Increased competition, economic volatility, evolving regulatory landscapes, or even changing market trends are examples of threats. By proactively assessing and addressing them, you can develop contingency plans, adjust your strategies, and minimize their impact on your operations.

In a SWOT analysis, you’ll have to take both internal and external factors into account. We’ll cover those next.

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SWOT Analysis Internal and External Factors

A SWOT analysis typically has internal (i.e., within your organization) and external (i.e., outside your organization) factors at play. Here's a breakdown of each.

Internal Factors

Internal factors refer to the characteristics and resources within your organization that directly influence its operations and performance. These factors are completely within your organization's control, so they can be modified, improved, or capitalized upon.

In a SWOT analysis, strengths and weaknesses are categorized as internal factors. Let’s look at a few examples.

Brand reputation
Unique expertise
Loyal customer base
Talented workforce
Efficient processes
Proprietary technology
Outdated technology
Inadequate resources
Poor financial health
Inefficient processes
Skill gaps within the team

External Factors

External factors are elements outside the organization's control that have an impact on its operations, market position, and success. These factors arise from the industry climate and the broader business environment. You typically have no control over external factors, but you can respond to them.

In a SWOT analysis, opportunities and threats are categorized as external factors. Let’s look at a few examples.

Emerging markets
Changing consumer trends
Technological advancements
Positive shifts in regulations
New gaps in the market you could fill
Intense competition
Economic downturns
Disruptive technologies
Changing regulations
Negative shifts in consumer behavior

Remember, a well-rounded SWOT analysis empowers you to capitalize on strengths, address weaknesses, seize opportunities, and navigate threats — all while making informed decisions for the future.

Now, let’s take a look at how you can write a good SWOT analysis for yourself or for stakeholders.

How do you write a good SWOT analysis?

There are several steps you’ll want to take when evaluating your business and conducting a strategic SWOT analysis.

1. Download HubSpot's SWOT Analysis Template.

There’s no need to start from scratch for your analysis. Instead, start by downloading a free, editable template from HubSpot. Feel free to use the model yourself, or create your own as it suits your needs.

HubSpot’s free SWOT analysis template explains how to do a SWOT analysis.

3. Identify your objective.

Before you start writing things down, you’ll need to figure out what you’re evaluating with your SWOT analysis.

Be specific about what you want to analyze. Otherwise, your SWOT analysis may end up being too broad, and you’ll get analysis paralysis as you are making your evaluations.

If you’re creating a new social media program, you’ll want to conduct an analysis to inform your content creation strategy. If you’re launching a new product, you’ll want to understand its potential positioning in the space. If you’re considering a brand redesign, you’ll want to consider existing and future brand conceptions.

All of these are examples of good reasons to conduct a SWOT analysis. By identifying your objective, you’ll be able to tailor your evaluation to get more actionable insights.

4. Identify your strengths.

“Strengths” refers to what you are currently doing well. Think about the factors that are going in your favor as well as the things you offer that your competitors just can’t beat.

For example, let’s say you want to use a SWOT analysis to evaluate your new social media strategy.

If you’re looking at a new social media program, perhaps you want to evaluate how your brand is perceived by the public. Is it easily recognizable and well-known? Even if it’s not popular with a widespread group, is it well-received by a specific audience?

Next, think about your process: Is it effective or innovative? Is there good communication between marketing and sales?

Finally, evaluate your social media message, and in particular, how it differs from the rest of the industry. I’m willing to bet you can make a lengthy list of some major strengths of your social media strategy over your competitors, so try to dive into your strengths from there.

5. Identify your weaknesses.

In contrast to your strengths, what are the roadblocks hindering you from reaching your goals? What do your competitors offer that continues to be a thorn in your side?

This section isn’t about dwelling on negative aspects. Rather, it’s critical to foresee any potential obstacles that could mitigate your success.

When identifying weaknesses, consider what areas of your business are the least profitable, where you lack certain resources, or what costs you the most time and money. Take input from employees in different departments, as they’ll likely see weaknesses you hadn’t considered.

If you’re examining a new social media strategy, you might start by asking yourself these questions: First, if I were a consumer, what would prevent me from buying this product, or engaging with this business? What would make me click away from the screen?

Second, what do I foresee as the biggest hindrance to my employees’ productivity, or their ability to get the job done efficiently? What derails their social media efforts?

6. Consider your opportunities.

This is your chance to dream big. What are some opportunities for your social media strategy you hope, but don’t necessarily expect, to reach?

For instance, maybe you’re hoping your Facebook ads will attract a new, larger demographic. Maybe you’re hoping your YouTube video gets 10,000 views and increases sales by 10%.

Whatever the case, it’s important to include potential opportunities in your SWOT analysis. Ask yourself these questions:

What technologies do I want my business to use to make it more effective?
What new target audience do I want to reach?
How can the business stand out more in the current industry?
Is there something our customers complain about that we could fix?

The opportunities category goes hand-in-hand with the weaknesses category. Once you’ve made a list of weaknesses, it should be easy to create a list of potential opportunities that could arise if you eliminate your weaknesses.

7. Contemplate your threats.

It’s likely, especially if you’re prone to worry, you already have a good list of threats in your head.

If not, gather your employees and brainstorm. Start with these questions:

What obstacles might prevent us from reaching our goals?
What’s going on in the industry, or with our competitors, that might mitigate our success?
Is there new technology out there that could conflict with our product?

Writing down your threats helps you evaluate them objectively.

For instance, maybe you list your threats in terms of least and most likely to occur and divide and conquer each. If one of your biggest threats is your competitor’s popular Instagram account, you could work with your marketing department to create content that showcases your product’s unique features.

SWOT Analysis Chart

Download a free SWOT analysis chart included in HubSpot’s free market research kit .

A SWOT analysis doesn’t have to be fancy. Our SWOT analysis chart provides a clear and structured framework for capturing and organizing your internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats. It's the perfect visual aid to make sense of the wealth of information gathered during your analysis.

(Plus, you can always customize and paste it into a document you plan to share with stakeholders.)

But remember: Filling out the SWOT chart is just one step in the process. Combine it with our entire market research kit , and you'll have all the tools necessary to help your organization navigate new opportunities and threats.

SWOT Analysis Examples

The template above helps get you started on your own SWOT analysis.

But, if you’re anything like me, it’s not enough to see a template. To fully understand a concept, you need to see how it plays out in the real world.

These SWOT examples are not exhaustive. However, they are a great starting point to inspire you as you do your own SWOT analysis.

Apple’s SWOT analysis

Here’s how we’d conduct a SWOT analysis on Apple.

First off, strengths. While Apple has many strengths, let’s identify the top three:

Brand recognition.
Innovative products.
Ease of use.

Apple’s brand is undeniably strong, and its business is considered the most valuable in the world . Since it’s easily recognized, Apple can produce new products and almost ensure a certain degree of success by virtue of the brand name itself.

Apple’s highly innovative products are often at the forefront of the industry. One thing that sets Apple apart from the competition is its product inter-connectivity.

For instance, an Apple user can easily sync their iPhone and iPad together. They can access all of their photos, contacts, apps, and more no matter which device they are using.

Lastly, customers enjoy how easy it is to use Apple’s products. With a sleek and simple design, each product is developed so that most people can quickly learn how to use them.

Next, let’s look at three of Apple’s weaknesses.

High prices
Closed ecosystem
Lack of experimentation

While the high prices don’t deter Apple’s middle- and upper-class customer base, they do hinder Apple’s ability to reach a lower-class demographic.

Apple also suffers from its own exclusivity. Apple controls all its services and products in-house, and while many customers become loyal brand advocates for this reason, it means all burdens fall on Apple employees.

Ultimately, Apple’s tight control over who distributes its products limits its market reach.

Lastly, Apple is held to a high standard when it comes to creating and distributing products. Apple’s brand carries a high level of prestige. That level of recognition inhibits Apple from taking risks and experimenting freely with new products that could fail.

Now, let’s take a look at opportunities for Apple.

It’s easy to recognize opportunities for improvement, once you consider Apple’s weaknesses. Here’s a list of three we came up with:

Expand distribution options.
Create new product lines.
Technological advancement.

One of Apple’s biggest weaknesses is its distribution network, which, in the name of exclusivity, remains relatively small. If Apple expanded its network and enabled third-party businesses to sell its products, it could reach more people globally, while alleviating some of the stress currently put on in-house employees.

There are also plenty of opportunities for Apple to create new products. Apple could consider creating more affordable products to reach a larger demographic, or spreading out into new industries — Apple self-driving cars, perhaps?

Finally, Apple could continue advancing its products’ technology. Apple can take existing products and refine them, ensuring each product offers as many unique features as possible.

Finally, let’s look at threats to Apple.

Believe it or not, they do exist.

Here are three of Apple’s biggest threats:

Tough competition.
International issues.

Apple isn’t the only innovative tech company out there, and it continues to face tough competition from Samsung, Google, and other major forces. In fact, Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple did in Q1 of 2022 , shipping 17 million more units than Apple and holding 24% of the market share.

Many of Apple’s weaknesses hinder Apple’s ability to compete with the tech corporations that have more freedom to experiment, or that don’t operate in a closed ecosystem.

A second threat to Apple is lawsuits. Apple has faced plenty of lawsuits, particularly between Apple and Samsung . These lawsuits interfere with Apple’s reputable image and could steer some customers to purchase elsewhere.

Finally, Apple needs to improve its reach internationally. The company isn’t number one in China and doesn’t have a very positive relationship with the Chinese government. In India, which has one of the largest consumer markets in the world, Apple’s market share is low , and the company has trouble bringing stores to India’s market.

If Apple can’t compete globally the way Samsung or Google can, it risks falling behind in the industry.

Starbucks SWOT Analysis

Now that we’ve explored the nuances involved with a SWOT analysis, let’s fill out a SWOT template using Starbucks as an example.

Here’s how we’d fill out a SWOT template if we were Starbucks:

Download this Template for Free

Restaurant Small Business SWOT Analysis

Some small business marketers may have difficulty relating to the SWOTs of big brands like Apple and Starbucks. Here’s an example of how a dine-in Thai restaurant might visualize each element.

A SWOT analysis example for a restaurant small business.

Small restaurants can lean into their culinary expertise and service skills to find opportunities for growth and brand awareness. A SWOT analysis can also help identify weaknesses that can be improved, such as menu variation and pricing.

While a restaurant might not be as worried about high-level lawsuits, a small business might be more concerned about competitors or disruptors that might enter the playing field.

Local Boutique SWOT Analysis

In another small business example, let’s take a look at a SWOT analysis for a local boutique.

A SWOT analysis example for a local boutique.

This shop might be well known in its neighborhood, but it also might take time to build an online presence or get its products in an online store.

Because of this, some of its strengths and opportunities might relate to physical factors while weaknesses and threats might relate to online situations.

How to Act on a SWOT Analysis

After conducting a SWOT analysis, you may be asking yourself: What’s next?

Putting together a SWOT analysis is only one step. Executing the findings identified by the analysis is just as important — if not more.

Put your insights into action using the following steps.

Take advantage of your strengths.

Use your strengths to pursue opportunities from your analysis.

For example, if we look at the local boutique example above, the strength of having affordable prices can be a value proposition. You can emphasize your affordable prices on social media or launch an online store.

Address your weaknesses.

Back to the boutique example, one of its weaknesses is having a poor social media presence. To mitigate this, the boutique could hire a social media consultant to improve its strategy. They may even tap into the expertise of a social-savvy employee.

Make note of the threats.

Threats are often external factors that can’t be controlled, so it’s best to monitor the threats outlined in your SWOT analysis to be aware of their impacts on your business.

When to Use a SWOT Analysis

While the examples above focus on business strategy in general, you can also use a SWOT analysis to evaluate and predict how a singular product will play out in the market.

Ultimately, a SWOT analysis can measure and tackle both big and small challenges, from deciding whether or not to launch a new product to refining your social media strategy.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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The Introduction of SWOT Analysis

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The Importance of Organizational Capability

Strategies to overcome marketing threats, swot analysis for technical support.

Concept of SWOT
Difference Between SWOT & TOWS Analysis

When you look at the same things every day, it becomes difficult to see what others may see. This is why people ask a friend's opinion when they're considering a new outfit or haircut. The same issue presents itself for businesses. Employees, managers and customers see things you don't, and their feedback is invaluable. Unlike that awful haircut, however, flattery doesn't help anyone.

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

Before you can get employee feedback on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing your business and before you ask them to help you analyze them, it's helpful if you first introduce them to the concept. Knowing the purpose of a SWOT analysis and what it can do as a tool will help to generate more useful feedback from your team.

Simply put, a SWOT analysis is used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business so they can be analyzed. As the University of Kansas explains, a SWOT analysis can be used for:

Exploring possibilities for new solutions to problems
Deciding on the best path for an initiative
Identifying your opportunities for success in context of new threats
Uncovering new possibilities for change
Revealing what business decisions need to be prioritized
Adjusting business plans in light of new changes to the market

All stakeholders are likely to have a unique perspective that can contribute to a SWOT analysis. The customer service rep, for example, hears customer feedback all day, while a technician has a unique understanding of the supplies and materials involved in production; the bookkeeper or accountant sees the financial aspects of the business. Putting all of these perspectives together paints a realistic landscape of your operations.

Examining Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths and weaknesses are the internal aspects of a business, most of which can be controlled, at least to some degree. Strengths are the things that give your business an advantage over the competition, while weaknesses are things that present a disadvantage. As Carleton College recommends, you should ask specific questions about your business like:

What are we good at?
What are we not good at?
What resources do we have?
What resources do we lack?
What makes us competitive?
What makes us less competitive?
Who are our allies, suppliers or partners?

As an example, suppose 80 percent of your customers say they love your exceptional shipping times and the level of detail you put into packaging items you ship, like the handwritten thank-you note included in every box. On the other hand, your prices are 20 percent more expensive than the shop across town.

Certainly, one way to increase business may be to simply lower prices. On the other hand, however, perhaps if you included testimonials from your happiest customers and strove even more to create memorable experiences for them, more people would see the benefits beyond the price tag.

Examining Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities and threats represent external factors that affect your business and over which you have no control. If a new theater is opening beside your coffee shop, that represents an opportunity to access a higher volume of customers. If unemployment is rising, or a new technology is disrupting your business model, these represent threats to your business.

It's a big world out there, so identifying opportunities and threats should involve research. Examining your competitors and reading industry reports are invaluable ways to keep abreast of changes that are affecting business. You should understand seasonal cycles in your business and how external factors like the economy, and even the weather, can affect your bottom line.

Don't Forget to Analyze

Simply listing the factors affecting your business won't do much for you until you start examining them in the context of your strategic frameworks and how, in combination, they affect each other. This usually takes out-of-the-box thinking, and the more people you have involved the better your chances are of uncovering a new opportunity amidst the threats and weaknesses.

One of the most difficult but rewarding ways to leverage a SWOT analysis is to turn weaknesses into strengths or threats into opportunities. Sometimes this can be achieved by looking at other industries. If a new superstore is opening next to a traditional retail shop, for example, it could benefit that shop to double-down on the appeal of its small size and unique offerings – offering free workshops, or offering customers coffee or tea when they come in to browse emphasizes its strengths while contrasting it against the anonymity of a big box store.

University of Kansas Community Tool Box: Section 14. SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Carleton College: SWOT Analysis

A published author and professional speaker, David Weedmark has advised businesses on technology, media and marketing for more than 20 years. He has taught computer science at Algonquin College, has started three successful businesses, and has written hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines and online publications including About.com, Re/Max and American Express.

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1 SWOT Analysis Recommendations & Identified Opportunities
2 Definition of a SWOT Analysis
3 SWOT Analysis for Breakfast Cereal
4 External Environment SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis - Essay Examples And Topic Ideas For Free

Wil’s grill swot analysis.

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Recreational Equipment Incorporated: SWOT Analysis

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Walmart Weaknesses

INTERNAL STRENGTHS The Internal Strengths of a company are what makes them who they are, also they are what contributes to the success of that company. Some of the internal strengths of Walmart, according to Smithson and SWOT Analysis, are: The largest retailer in the world- Walmart is the largest retailer and employees the most people in the world. This contributes to reputation and allows them to be everywhere for their customers Global expansion- Walmart is in 22 countries over […]

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SWOT Analysis Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. is a technology company that designs, manufactures and sells mobile electronics, software and other online solutions for the consumers of tech products. It is an American multinational founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak. The company has had great success in the past decade and has dominated the technology industry, evident from the amount of revenue generated (O'Grady, 2009). Some of the major changes that have taken place in the company since […]

The Purpose of this SWOT Analysis for Netflix

Background on Netflix "Netflix has been leading the way for digital content since 1997" (Netflix.com, 2018) Netflix is currently the world's leader in the realm of internet entertainment. Netflix has a whopping 125 million memberships in over 190 countries; members enjoy entertainment such as original content as well as an array of television series, documentaries feature films that are made available in multiple languages and genres. With the convenience of the internet members can stream and even download commercial free […]

Apple Company Business Background

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computers, Inc. on April 1, 1976. They conveyed to the new organization a dream of changing the manner in which individuals saw PCs. Jobs and Wozniak needed to make PCs little enough for individuals to have them in their homes or workplaces. They dreamt of a user friendly and convenient computer. Wozniak left Apple in 1983 because of a reducing enthusiasm for the everyday running of Apple Computers. Jobs at that point contracted […]

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Board of Directors for Apple Company

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SWOT Analysis: University Comparison

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How To Write an Essay About Swot Analysis

Understanding swot analysis.

Before writing an essay about SWOT analysis, it's crucial to understand what SWOT stands for and how it is used. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It's a framework that helps organizations or individuals to identify internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving their objectives. Start your essay by explaining each component of SWOT: Strengths (what an organization or individual does well), Weaknesses (areas that need improvement), Opportunities (external factors that can be exploited for benefit), and Threats (external factors that could cause trouble). It's important to understand that SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used in a variety of fields, from business management to personal development.

Developing a Thesis Statement

Your essay should be centered around a clear, concise thesis statement. This statement should present a specific viewpoint or argument about SWOT analysis. For instance, you might discuss the importance of SWOT analysis in strategic planning, analyze its effectiveness in a particular case study, or argue for modifications to the traditional SWOT analysis model to better suit modern business environments. Your thesis will guide the direction of your essay, providing a structured and focused analysis.

Gathering and Presenting Examples

To support your thesis, it's effective to gather and present examples of SWOT analysis. You might choose a specific company, industry, or even a personal scenario where SWOT analysis has been applied. Discuss how the four elements of SWOT were identified and used in decision-making processes. Providing real-life examples will make your essay more tangible and relatable, allowing readers to see the practical application of the theory.

Analyzing the Effectiveness of SWOT Analysis

Dedicate a section of your essay to critically analyzing the effectiveness of SWOT analysis. Discuss its advantages, such as its simplicity and comprehensiveness, as well as its limitations, which might include its subjective nature or lack of prioritization. You can also explore how SWOT analysis can be complemented with other strategic planning tools for more robust results.

Concluding the Essay

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points and restating your thesis in light of the discussion. Your conclusion should tie together the analysis and emphasize the overall significance of SWOT analysis in strategic planning. You might also want to suggest areas for future research or potential improvements in the methodology of SWOT analysis.

Reviewing and Refining Your Essay

After writing your essay, take time to review and refine it. Ensure that your arguments are clearly articulated and supported by examples. Check for grammatical accuracy and ensure that your essay flows logically from one point to the next. Consider seeking feedback from peers or instructors to further improve your essay. A well-crafted essay on SWOT analysis will not only demonstrate your understanding of the framework but also your ability to critically engage with management and planning tools.

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Home / Essay Samples / Business / Entrepreneurship / Swot Analysis

Swot Analysis Essay Examples

Swot analysis of google company.

Google is one of the top 5 most recognizable tech company brands in the world (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon). It was rated by Forbes second overall among the top brands values for the third straight year, being valued at US$132.1 billion. Google has...

A Report on the Operations of Zara in Foreign Countries

This report was commissioned to examine how Zara operates in foreign countries and their use of intercultural communication abilities in multicultural situations. For a better understanding of what type of challenges Zara faces, we would like to do a SWOT analysis with the focus of...

Analysis Strategic Plan Part 2: Swot

When we plan to start a new project or to achieve a goal, we must identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in which it’s called the SWOT analysis. the essential goal of a SWOT examination is to enable associations to build up a full attention...

Meta-analysis of the Company "Amazon"

To start with, this is Amazon executive summary paper where deep analysis of this company is discussed. Meta-analysis shows that there is a significant positive overall correlation between formal planning and success. Armstrong describes strategic planning 'a specific method for deciding the company's broad objectives,...

Swot Analysis and Strategies of Costco Wholesale Corporation

Costco was the world's second-largest retailer, Costco was the largest retailer of option in the world with organic food, rotisserie chicken, premium beef, and wine. Costco has the core competencies that give it a competitive advantage over its competition. Costco has defined its business model...

A Swot Analysis for Nike Company

An analysis outlines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the retailer that can be considered on a basis of recommendation for making short-term or long-term strategic decisions. Nike has a very dominant market position with a strong brand image - they are the...

Strategic Business Management Analysis of Hong Kong Disneyland

Even monopoly business structures have to undergo intense competition and hence frequently change their management strategies in order to maintain their market coverage. The same goes with every business structures, we need a strategic business management as it is the most vital factor for assisting...

The Analysis to Gain an Insight of Dell

The purpose of this analysis is to gain an insight of Dell Inc. Starting out providing general background information of the company. It also discusses an industry analysis and containing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) table and analysis of the SWOT. Finally ending...

Quality Report on Fedex Company

In our project, we chose to talk about the service providing company, FedEx. We will be giving a little background on the organization. Furthermore, we will be discussing the SWOT analysis that we have interpreted, as well as the assessment of the quality practices and...

Report on Campus Cleaners Marketing Plan

Campus Cleaners is a growing, family-owned corporation in the first year of business in Shreveport Louisiana. Campus Cleaners sells a laundry delivery service for college students that attend Louisiana State University at Shreveport. Campus Cleaners staff face an expansion challenge, as Campus Cleaners popularity begins...

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Essay: An introduction to swot analysis

Text preview of this essay:

Theoretical Business Tools

What is a: SWOT; SLEPT AND PEST ANALYSIS?

SWOT Analysis

Key Thinking!

SLEPT Analysis

PEST Analysis

The PEST Square

PEST Stands For…

About this essay:

Essay Categories:

How to Write a SWOT Analysis Paper

Better than a pros and cons list

Identify your objective/goal

Opportunities

Writing the SWOT analysis paper

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How to Write a SWOT Analysis (Template and Examples Included)

Planning for the Future

How to Write a SWOT Analysis

Our SWOT Analysis Template

Opportunities

Threats

An Example of a Personal SWOT Analysis

An Example of a Business SWOT Analysis

Final Words

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TIP: Before you start, get organized

1. Create a SWOT matrix

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3. List your strengths

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5. Identify your opportunities

6. Identify your potential threats

7. Examine your matrix for connections

Complement Your SWOT With A PEST Analysis

What Should You Do with Your SWOT Analysis?

Real-world SWOT Analysis Examples

Seize New Opportunities

Evaluate Your Competitive Advantage

Learn Business Strengths

Address Future Business Challenges

Shore up Weaknesses

See Different Perspectives

SWOT Analysis Best Practices

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When and where should you develop a SWOT analysis?

How do you use your SWOT analysis?

Why should I conduct a SWOT analysis?

What's the difference between a SWOT and PESTEL analysis?

Ted Jackson

Table of Contents

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How Healthcare Providers Use ClearPoint for Impactful Strategy Management

Master the Art of Writing an Impressive Swot Analysis Essay

What is a Swot Analysis?

Why Should Students Learn to Write a Swot Analysis Essay?

Develop Analytical Skills

Enhance Strategic Thinking

Improve Communication

Prepare for Real-world Applications

Steps to Writing a Good Swot Analysis Essay

Step 1: Choose a Subject

Step 2: Identify Strengths

Step 3: Pinpoint Weaknesses

Step 4: Explore Opportunities

Step 5: Assess Threats

Step 6: Organize the Information

Step 7: Analyze Relationships