Each person or group offers a different perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of your program and has different experiences of both.
Likewise, one staff member, or volunteer or stakeholder may have information about an opportunity or threat that is essential to understanding your position and determining your future.
A SWOT analysis is often created during a retreat or planning session that allows several hours for brainstorming and analysis. The best results come when the process is collaborative and inclusive. When creating the analysis, people are asked to pool their individual and shared knowledge and experience.
The more relaxed, friendly and constructive the setting, the more truthful, comprehensive, insightful, and useful your analysis will be. More ideas on conducting successful meetings can be found in Community Tool Box resources on conducting public forums and listening sessions , conducting focus groups , and organizing a retreat. Better understanding the factors affecting your initiative put you in a better position for action. This understanding helps as you:. As you consider your analysis, be open to the possibilities that exist within a weakness or threat.
Likewise, recognize that an opportunity can become a threat if everyone else sees the opportunity and plans to take advantage of it as well, thereby increasing your competition. Finally, during your assessment and planning, you might keep an image in mind to help you make the most of a SWOT analysis: Look for a "stretch," not just a "fit. Therefore one drawback is that it might not encourage openness to new possibilities.
You can use SWOT to justify a course that has already been decided upon, but if your goal is to grow or improve, you will want to keep this in mind.
A realistic recognition of the weaknesses and threats that exist for your effort is the first step to countering them with a robust set of strategies that build upon strengths and opportunities.
A SWOT analysis identifies your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to assist you in making strategic plans and decisions. David, F.
Strategic Management , 4th Ed. Jones, B. Skip to main content. Toggle navigation Navigation. Assessing Community Needs and Resources » Section Chapter 3. Chapter 3 Sections Section 1. Understanding and Describing the Community Section 3.
Collecting Information About the Problem Section 5. Analyzing Community Problems Section 6. Conducting Focus Groups Section 7. Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys Section 8. Identifying Community Assets and Resources Section 9. Developing Baseline Measures Section Conducting Concerns Surveys Section Determining Service Utilization Section Conducting Interviews Section SWOT Analysis was first used to analyze businesses. Now it's often used by governments, nonprofits, and individuals, including investors and entrepreneurs.
Strengths describe what an organization excels at and what separates it from the competition : a strong brand, loyal customer base, a strong balance sheet, unique technology, and so on. For example, a hedge fund may have developed a proprietary trading strategy that returns market-beating results.
It must then decide how to use those results to attract new investors. Weaknesses stop an organization from performing at its optimum level. They are areas where the business needs to improve to remain competitive: a weak brand, higher-than-average turnover, high levels of debt, an inadequate supply chain, or lack of capital. Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage.
For example, if a country cuts tariffs, a car manufacturer can export its cars into a new market, increasing sales and market share. Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm an organization. For example, a drought is a threat to a wheat-producing company, as it may destroy or reduce the crop yield.
Other common threats include things like rising costs for materials, increasing competition, tight labor supply. What occurs within the company serves as a great source of information for the strengths and weaknesses categories of the SWOT analysis. Examples of internal factors include financial and human resources, tangible and intangible brand name assets, and operational efficiencies. Potential questions to list internal factors are:.
What happens outside of the company is equally as important to the success of a company as internal factors. External influences, such as monetary policies, market changes, and access to suppliers, are categories to pull from to create a list of opportunities and weaknesses. Potential questions to list external factors are:. Use a SWOT analysis to identify challenges affecting your business and opportunities that can enhance it.
However, note that it is one of many techniques, not a prescription. However, it also noted weaknesses and threats such as foreign currency fluctuations, growing public interest in "healthy" beverages, and competition from healthy beverage providers. Its SWOT analysis prompted Value Line to pose some tough questions about Coca-Cola's strategy, but also to note that the company "will probably remain a top-tier beverage provider" that offered conservative investors "a reliable source of income and a bit of capital gains exposure.
To get a better picture of a SWOT analysis, consider the example of a fictitious organic smoothie company. To better understand how it competes within the smoothie market and what it can do better, it conducted a SWOT analysis. Through this analysis, it identified that its strengths were good sourcing of ingredients, personalized customer service, and a strong relationship with suppliers.
Peering within its operations, it identified a few areas of weakness: little product diversification, high turnover rates, and outdated equipment. Examining how the external environment affects its business, it identified opportunities in emerging technology, untapped demographics, and a culture shift towards healthy living. It also found threats, such as a winter freeze damaging crops, a global pandemic, and kinks in the supply chain.
In conjunction with other planning techniques, the company used the SWOT analysis to leverage its strengths and external opportunities to eliminate threats and strengthen areas where it is weak. SWOT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis is a method for identifying and analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats that shape current and future operations and help develop strategic goals.
SWOT analyses are not limited to companies. Individuals can also use SWOT analysis to engage in constructive introspection and form personal improvement goals.
Home Depot conducted a SWOT analysis, creating a balanced list of its internal advantages and disadvantages and external factors threatening its market position and growth strategy.
High-quality customer service, strong brand recognition, and positive relationships with suppliers were some of its notable strengths; whereas, a constricted supply chain, interdependence on the U. The first step is to look at your strengths and figure out how you can use those strengths to take advantage of your opportunities. Then, look at how your strengths can combat the threats that are in the market.
Use this analysis to produce a list of actions that you can take. With your action list in hand, look at your company calendar and start placing goals or milestones on it. What do you want to accomplish in each calendar quarter or month moving forward? Can you also minimize those weaknesses so you can avoid the threats that you identified?
I like to use the Lean Planning methodology for strategic plans as well as regular business planning. The actions that you generate from your SWOT analysis will fit right into the milestones portion of your Lean Plan and will give you a concrete foundation that you can grow your business from. You can download our free Lean Plan template to help you get started.
You can find me on Twitter noahparsons. Gather the right people Gather people from different parts of your company and make sure that you have representatives from every department and team. Throw your ideas at the wall Doing a SWOT analysis is similar to brainstorming meetings, and there are right and wrong ways to run them. Strengths Strengths are internal, positive attributes of your company.
What business processes are successful? What assets do you have in your teams? What competitive advantages do you have over your competition?
Weaknesses Weaknesses are negative factors that detract from your strengths. Are there things that your business needs to be competitive?
The Center for Simplified Strategic Planning cautions against over-correction when analyzing strengths and weaknesses. A weakness may be and should be accepted in some cases. The company in the example that successfully provides products to a particular market should not attempt to correct its weakness because doing so might result in losing the customer base that is currently making it successful. Weaknesses can, however, come in other forms.
If a competitor provides products to the same customer base at the same prices but also provides free online shipping, the example company may consider this a weakness that should be corrected in order to maintain market share. In reviewing strengths and weaknesses, there are several areas that should be considered in addition to the employees.
What are your competitive advantages and disadvantages? Is your quality up to par?
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