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SWOT Analysis Tips

Written by: Igor Glavanic

Article Overview: Some tips & recommendations on how to conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats) analysis.

SWOT Analysis Tips

SWOT is one of the most commonly used tools in marketing, corporate planning & strategic assessments today.

SWOT stands for:
- Strengths: attributes of the organization that are helpful to achieving the objective.
- Weaknesses: attributes of the organization that are harmful to achieving the objective.
- Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective.
- Threats: external conditions which could do damage to the business's performance

In terms of tips for Strengths focus on internal factors such as:
- your business known competitive advantages (product, process, etc…)
- capital & balance sheet strengths
- relationships and intangibles
- other market, finance, operational & product strenghts

On Weakness also focus on internal factors such as:
- staff shortages or finding issues
- corporate culture issues
- process & systems underdevelopment etc.

On Opportunity focus is on mainly external factors such as:
- leverage market share to grow
- focus on certain market segment to succeed
- targeting specific identified customers with particular product etc.

On Threats focus is also on mainly external factors such as:
- That are the competitors doing that can impact your business
- external market factors (ie. economic slowdown)
- Niche players targeting certain segments and customers

Remember the aim of the SWOT is to identify key actions and steps in the process of planning for achievement of the selected objective.

Related Articles
  Use Creativity when Generating a SWOT
  Don't SWAG Your SWOT!
  How To Use A SWOT Analysis To Improve Your Business
  To SWOT or not to SWOT?
  SWOT Analysis Is No Magic 8 Ball

Article Tags: attributes, balance sheet, competitive advantages, corporate culture, corporate planning, culture issues, economic slowdown, external factors, intangibles, internal factors, leverage market, market factors, market finance, market segment, market share, niche players, operational product, segments, staff shortages, strenghts



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