- Contact Sales
- Project management |
- SWOT analysis: What it is and how to us ...
SWOT analysis: What it is and how to use it (with examples)
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 the baseline of 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.
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 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)](https://assets.asana.biz/transform/cfab4ed2-46d1-4636-b801-14b3d86c8367/inline-project-management-SWOT-analysis-4-2x?io=transform:fill,width:1680&format=webp "business plan checklist with swot analysis")
When used correctly and effectively, your matrix can be a great toolkit for evaluating your organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
How do you write a good SWOT analysis?
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 it 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.
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 .
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 .
Related resources
15 project management interview questions, answers, and tips
Project closure: 8 steps to finish projects confidently
Meeting agenda template
IT project plan template
Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis
Assign owners and completion dates to the key activities needed to be performed when preparing a formal business plan. This accessible checklist template follows the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Thread (SWOT) analysis framework.
More templates like this
Find inspiration for your next project with thousands of ideas to choose from
Address books
All holidays
Animation and 3D
Announcements
Back to school
Bids and quotes
Blank and general
Business cards
Business plans
Certificates
College tools
Congratulations
Family activities
Financial management
Food and nutrition
Fun and games
Health and fitness
Home Learning
Infographics
Inventories
Invitations
Itineraries
Newsletters
Papers and reports
Photo albums
Planners and trackers
Presentations
Profit and loss
Resumes and cover letters
Social media
What Is A SWOT Analysis? Download Our Free Template
Reviewed By
Updated: Mar 25, 2022, 5:09pm
A SWOT analysis is a framework used in a business’s strategic planning to evaluate its competitive positioning in the marketplace. The analysis looks at four key characteristics that are typically used to compare how competitive the business can be within its industry. A proper SWOT analysis can give you a fact-based analysis to make decisions from, or it could spark your creativity for new products or directions.
Featured Partners
From $10 monthly per user
Zoom, LinkedIn, Adobe, Salesforce and more
Via monday.com's Website
Yes, for one member
Free version available
Slack, Microsoft Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce, Timely, Google Drive and more
On ClickUp's Website
From $9.80 monthly per user
Google Drive, Microsoft Office, Dropbox and more
Via Wrike's Secure Website
The Four Points Of SWOT
The four points of a proper SWOT analysis are Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and Weaknesses focus internally on the business being evaluated, while Opportunities and Threats look at competition and things going on externally. Let’s look at the four points in more detail to determine how you can correctly evaluate each one.
- Strengths. Your Strengths are internal positives about your company that you can control and that often provide you with a competitive advantage. Some examples might be the quality of your product, the effectiveness of your processes, your access to physical or team assets or other competitive advantages.
- Weaknesses. A Weakness is an adverse internal attribute about your company that negatively takes away from your Strengths. Some examples might include knowledge gaps on your team, a low-quality product, a lack of money or other tangible assets, bad locations and more.
- Opportunities. An Opportunity is an external factor that provides promise or is likely to contribute to your potential success. Some examples might include the growth rate in your industry, specific laws or policies that will benefit the need for your product, positive customer feedback or technology advancements.
- Threats. A Threat is an external factor that you have no control over, which could negatively impact your success. These are typically acknowledged so that you can provide a plan to overcome each one. Some examples include potential future competitors, costs of supply, upcoming market trends, negative technology changes and upcoming regulations or laws.
The key to a strong SWOT analysis is accuracy in your research across all four points. Once you have the right information, you need to display it in an efficient and appealing way so that the data can easily be shared across your organization, with potential investors or with whoever might benefit the most from receiving it.
Downloadable SWOT Template
A SWOT analysis is usually presented in a grid form that provides the most important information from the analysis in each of the four points or areas. We have created a downloadable template that you can use to easily make your own SWOT analysis and include it as part of your next presentation or proposal. If preferred, you can also make a copy in Google Docs.
Download Free Template
How To Do An Effective SWOT Analysis
Every SWOT analysis is somewhat unique to each business but, ultimately, there is a straightforward process that can work for everyone. For example, you’ll have to complete all four points for a proper SWOT analysis but the research and method of getting the information could vary. The depth of each point might also vary depending on the age of your business, and the competition or opportunity in your industry.
The three steps to complete a proper SWOT analysis are:
- Gather the right stakeholders together. You need to involve more than yourself when going through a SWOT analysis. Key leaders and decision makers in your organization should be involved in going through the exercise. If you’re starting a business, you should include all who are involved in the business at this point in time.
- Brainstorm and capture SWOT data. The second step is to go through the process of identifying the information related to each of the four points. Everyone should do this independently as well as collectively.
- Analyze the data. Take all of the information collected through the brainstorming and come to an agreement on what factors should be represented in each of the main points. Then you can plug your information into the SWOT analysis template above and use this to strategically plan for future growth.
Questions To Aide Your Research For Each SWOT Point
When conducting the SWOT analysis, the most important part is making sure you’re as inclusive as possible with the analysis of each point. We’ve compiled a list of questions that you can use to start working through each point in your SWOT analysis so that you don’t leave anything off your list.
Use-Case Examples
You can use a SWOT analysis for a number of activities, from deciding whether to invest in a business to helping an individual perform better at a non-profit. The use of SWOT is industry agnostic, as long as there are both internal and external factors that relate to the team, business or person being evaluated.
Some use-case examples for SWOT analysis include:
- A new business venture. Whenever a new business is launching it is a good idea to create a SWOT analysis to see where your Strengths and shortcomings lie. If you’re looking to raise money, then it will be expected that you’ve completed this analysis.
- Launching a new product. Whenever you’re launching a new product, you can treat it like a new business and complete the SWOT analysis to ensure success. Not doing your research beforehand could lead to targeting the wrong customers or not preparing for the competitive landscape.
- Improving team processes. From time to time, it could be beneficial to evaluate the performance of your team and see where you’re succeeding and what Opportunities exist to improve.
- Product team adding features. Every time a new feature is added to your product, your team can complete a SWOT analysis to see what impact it could have on the competitive landscape.
- Marketing team launching a campaign. Whenever a new target audience or method for reaching them is considered, the marketing team can complete a SWOT analysis to determine its potential.
As you can see, the sky’s the limit for use cases since you can use a SWOT analysis to determine the potential Strengths or roadblocks for just about anything.
Alternatives To SWOT Analysis
Depending on your situation, or your business, you may want to consider an alternative to a SWOT analysis. There are several options that can give you similar results, but these four alternatives are the most popular amongst businesses and teams looking at SWOT.
- SOAR analysis. SOAR stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results. This is the most positive analysis on the list and is one of the most popular with those who dislike the SWOT analysis. This method requires you to evaluate the “six Is” of collaboration (initiate, inquire, imagine, innovate, inspire and implement).
- SCORE analysis. SCORE stands for Strengths, Challenges, Options, Responses and Effectiveness. Many like the “challenges” point of SCORE because it encompasses Threats, Weaknesses and obstacles in a single point while making all of them more of a positive opportunity. The SCORE methodology also focuses on actions you can take to improve instead of just focusing on the information from the analysis.
- NOISE analysis. NOISE stands for Needs, Opportunities, Improvements, Strengths and exceptions. The needs point focuses on the things your business or team needs to succeed instead of focusing on your shortcomings as things that stand in your way. This approach really trains you to see potential growth instead of roadblocks.
- Gap analysis. Gap is the only analysis on this list that doesn’t stand for anything. A gap analysis looks at where you’re at right now, where you want to go and how you close the gap between the two.
When To Use SWOT
When you need a broad analysis of your business, department, organizational or team potential, you should look no further than the SWOT analysis. It can provide a good overview of all of the major points that add up to potential success and help you draft a road map for potential growth. A SWOT analysis is also a good fit if you just need a quick comparison of your business to the competitive landscape that is out there.
When To Use An Alternative
If you need to dive deeper into specific factors or points of your business or team potential, then you may want to consider another alternative to the SWOT analysis. Alternatively, many pundits think that the word choices in SWOT are either vague or that they promote defeat. If you agree with that before you begin the SWOT analysis, then another option might be best for you so that the end goal of growing your business or team is met without obstacles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should complete a swot analysis.
Anyone looking to determine how a business or organization matches up against the competition, if there are both internal and external factors involved, should do a SWOT analysis. While a SWOT analysis is mostly used by new businesses or businesses launching a new product, it can also be used for any other type of organization and even for your local economy .
When should you do a SWOT analysis?
If you want to change your strategic positioning or launch a new product or service, then you should complete a SWOT analysis. Some also complete the exercise if they are just curious about their current positioning in their market or industry.
How do you write a good SWOT analysis?
A good SWOT analysis includes a full analysis of each point (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) as well as a clear and concise way of displaying the end results. The three primary steps to writing a good SWOT analysis are:
- Gather the right stakeholders together.
- Brainstorm and capture SWOT data.
- Analyze the data.
What are examples of threats in a SWOT analysis?
Threats are often external influences outside of your control; things that you risk by doing business. Inclement weather is one good example of something that you can’t combat and will have to deal with as it happens. Having a plan in place for dangerous storms will help you be prepared when they inevitably happen. Waiting for permits, supply chain failures and manufacturing errors can all impact your business negatively.
- Best Project Management Software
- Best Construction Project Management Software
- Best Project Portfolio Management Software
- Best Gantt Chart Software
- Best Agile Certifications
- Best Task Management Software
- Best Free Project Management Software
- Asana Review
- Trello Review
- monday.com Review
- Smartsheet Review
- Wrike Review
- Todoist Review
- Basecamp Review
- Monday vs Asana
- Clickup vs Asana
- Asana vs Trello
- Asana vs Jira
- Trello vs Jira
- Monday vs Trello
- Clickup vs Trello
- Asana vs Wrike
- What Is Project Management
- Project Management Methodologies
- 10 Essential Project Management Skills
- SMART Goals: Ultimate Guide
- What is a Gantt Chart?
- What is a Kanban Board?
- What is a RACI Chart?
- What is Gap Analysis?
- Work Breakdown Structure Guide
- Agile vs Waterfall Methodology
- What is a Stakeholder Analysis
- How to Create a Project Timeline
How To Start A Business In Alabama (2023 Guide)
Zoho desk review 2023: features, pricing & more, what is churn rate & how do you calculate it, what is customer lifetime value (clv), gender pay gap statistics in 2023, u.s digital tipping culture in 2023.
Jeff is a writer, founder, and small business expert that focuses on educating founders on the ins and outs of running their business. From answering your legal questions to providing the right software for your unique situation, he brings his knowledge and diverse background to help answer the questions you have about small business operations.
Cassie is a deputy editor, collaborating with teams around the world while living in the beautiful hills of Kentucky. She is passionate about economic development and is on the board of two non-profit organizations seeking to revitalize her former railroad town. Prior to joining the team at Forbes Advisor, Cassie was a Content Operations Manager and Copywriting Manager at Fit Small Business.
We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Manage Cookies
Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. Without these cookies, services you’ve asked for can’t be provided.
Show cookie providers
- Google Login
Functionality Cookies
These cookies help us provide enhanced functionality and personalisation, and remember your settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers.
Performance Cookies
These cookies help us analyze how many people are using Venngage, where they come from and how they're using it. If you opt out of these cookies, we can’t get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users.
- Google Analytics
Targeting Cookies
These cookies are set by our advertising partners to track your activity and show you relevant Venngage ads on other sites as you browse the internet.
- Google Tag Manager
- Infographics
- Graphic Design
- Graphs and Charts
- Data Visualization
- Human Resources
- Training and Development
- Beginner Guides
Blog Marketing
20+ SWOT Analysis Templates, Examples & Best Practices
By Midori Nediger , May 09, 2022
You know what you need if you’re contemplating producing a new product line, jumping into a new industry, or even just working on a company analysis for a school assignment?
A SWOT analysis chart.
SWOT analysis is a great way to effectively evaluate a person, campaign, strategy or product — and if you want to create a nicely looking SWOT table that impresses (your stakeholders or your college professor), you need a SWOT analysis template.
Read on to see different types of SWOT analysis templates you can create with Venngage, plus top tips and plenty of SWOT analysis examples.
Click to skip ahead:
What is a swot analysis, what does swot stand for explaining each element of swot, how to write a swot analysis, marketing swot analysis templates.
- Nonprofit SWOT analysis examples
Exec SWOT analysis templates
- Personal SWOT analysis examples
- Consultant SWOT analysis examples
SWOT analysis templates for Word
Swot analysis templates for powerpoint.
- FAQs about SWOT analysis templates
SWOT stands for Strengths – Weaknesses – Opportunities – Threats.
A SWOT analysis is a simple and practical evaluation model. A SWOT diagram looks at a combination of internal and external factors, as well as assessing strengths and weaknesses. This combination of evaluation metrics means a SWOT analysis is particularly useful for gaining a thorough overview of a business, product, brand, or a new project early on in the project life cycle .
WATCH: What is a SWOT analysis? [TIPS + TEMPLATES]
A SWOT diagram allows you to think about your own internal strengths and weaknesses. It also helps you think about external opportunities and threats that could affect your company’s performance. SWOT diagrams also help you explore the differentiators between yourself and your competitors.
The SWOT diagram has been around since at least the 1960s, although its origins are unclear, and are still used today in businesses across the world. Here’s a grid SWOT analysis example that companies can easily put together.
While a SWOT matrix is a good starting point for evaluation, the disadvantage of a SWOT is that it doesn’t produce actionable outcomes — rather it helps you understand where you currently stand, and how you can begin to move your business forward.
A good SWOT analysis template, like this example, should always be followed by further planning and development so you have an idea of what internal factors need to be considered. It also helps to prepare for external factors beyond your company’s control.
For more information on what a SWOT analysis is and the importance of SWOT analyses, check out these posts:
- What Is a SWOT Analysis and Its Importance to Businesses
- Why Is a SWOT Analysis Important [+ Examples]
- Why You Need a Sales SWOT Analysis [+Tips on Writing One]
- What is a SWOT Analysis in Healthcare and Why You Need It
The simplest way to build a SWOT analysis is to use a free SWOT analysis template. In this post, we’ll share examples of SWOT analysis templates that you can customize for your business growth strategy.
Return to Table of Contents
SWOT is an acronym that stands for: Strengths — Weaknesses — Opportunities — Threats.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements:
Strengths are the areas you excel at. What do you do better than anybody else? What do people praise you for?
To identify your Strengths, spend some time thinking about what you’ve done well, what tasks were well within your comfort zone, and any times that you’ve exceeded expectations, or achieved fantastic results.
A SWOT matrix could be conducted during recruitment to help identify the strengths of candidates, and directly compare them effectively. Or use a SWOT analysis template to understand how internal and external factors impact your brand.
This SWOT analysis template, for example, examines the strengths of a training program offered to employees of a call center:
Pro tip : With a paid Venngage subscription , you can download this SWOT template as a PNG and add it to your Word document or PowerPoint presentation. You can also download it as a PPTX file and add it directly to your presentation as a slide.
Next you identify the areas that need improvement. Think about things you find difficult to achieve, times you’ve struggled to meet expectations, and areas that you don’t feel confident in. Look back at your Strengths list and think about the inverse when filling out your SWOT template.
Weaknesses should always be things you have control over, and things that you can put steps in place to improve upon. You could use a SWOT to help analyze your brand, and understand why your customers chose your competitors over you, or if there are any services you are not currently providing. Use this SWOT analysis example for inspiration.
Opportunities
Moving onto the “O” in our SWOT – Opportunities are areas that your business could take advantage of. When conducting a SWOT for internal company analysis, is there an unserved or underserved market that you could grow into? Are you maximizing your media coverage? Could you change or develop a product to better serve a wider audience? What external factors work to your benefit in filling market gaps?
If you look at SWOT Opportunities examples, you will find the importance of also looking back at your Strengths and Weaknesses lists. You should include any weaknesses that could be turned into a strength as an opportunity in your SWOT analysis template.
Finally, threats are potential or upcoming obstacles that you should be wary of. In this case, by threat, we mean emerging competitors, changes in the market, things that would negatively affect your business. Most commonly, you will not have any control over your threats but it’s still important to be aware of them so that you can develop contingency plans. Remember to keep this section of the SWOT matrix objective so you don’t miss out on opportunities.
The first two letters of our SWOT, Strengths and Weaknesses, are internal factors that you have control over, and you should look within your company or business to complete these sections. Opportunities and Threats are external factors that you do not have control over, and you should look outside of your organization to complete them, like in the simple SWOT analysis example below:
When developing any marketing campaign you can use a SWOT analysis, like the one above, to outline any potential threats as well as opportunities for your business. You can include a SWOT diagram as part of your marketing plan or business plan, like in this SWOT analysis template.
A version of this SWOT analysis template is used in this business proposal (page 4).
You can see how the designer has adapted the brand colors of this business into the SWOT analysis, which you can easily do by using My Brand Kit :
Tips for creating a SWOT analysis
When doing a SWOT analysis, it can be difficult to find jumping-off points for your evaluation. Often, you either go too big and list “impossible to fix” problems, or think small and spend your time and energy focusing on things that are overall insignificant.
You also need to consider internal factors like team size that may be changing. Deciding on your SWOT analysis questions can take as much time as conducting the SWOT analysis itself!
That’s why it’s important to decide on an overall goal or objective that you want your SWOT template to help you achieve. This could be more sales, bigger growth, better brand recognition, a prestigious award, or more.
If you’re creating a personal SWOT analysis template, you can pick a goal you’re working towards such as a promotion, or an award, and identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to that goal. In personal SWOT analysis examples like this, you can give yourself a time period, such as the last year, to review.
Once you have decided on a goal, you can start to think about SWOT analysis questions that are related to:
- Your customers
- Your competitors
- Your market share
- Business growth
- Availability
- Price point
- Online following
- Customer retention
- Budget restrictions
- Company culture
This is by no means a complete list of topics to evaluate, and you should add your own ideas, but it’s a good starting point for effective evaluation. Here’s a simple SWOT analysis template that shows you the result of asking the right questions.
When developing a marketing plan you should use a business planning SWOT template for your product or service. By looking at what you do better than your competitors you can start to understand the best way to market your product. This free SWOT analysis template for Word showcases the opportunities for the business.
Take a look at page 4 of this template to see how you can integrate a SWOT analysis into a marketing plan:
Equally, by looking at opportunities you can begin to understand potential new markets, as well as under-served areas that you already market within. Marketers, consultants and freelancers often include SWOT analyses in competitor analysis reports .
Here’s an example of a competitor analysis report that uses a SWOT template on page 5:
Looking for more marketing resources?
- How to conduct a SWOT analysis in marketing (+examples)
- The complete guide to marketing infographics
- How to use SEO in your visual marketing
- How to make a marketing plan
Nonprofit SWOT analysis examples
Nonprofit organizations can use SWOT analyses to help inform their strategic planning.
A SWOT is a great way to understand how your nonprofit fits into the market, and how you can maximize your impact by running effective targeted campaigns and fundraising initiatives. This SWOT analysis example showcases areas where a nonprofit can improve.
Especially in nonprofits, you often don’t have the luxury of testing out multiple ideas or strategies due to time and budget constraints. Conducting a SWOT analysis early on in your strategy development can help you make the most informed decisions. This SWOT analysis example highlights the threats that a nonprofit should be looking to overcome soon.
Looking for more nonprofit guides?
- The complete nonprofit marketing guide
- Nonprofit communication resources
- Nonprofit storytelling examples
Execs have to wear many different hats within their roles and organizations. Business development is a crucial part of company success, and being fully aware of your organizational strengths and weaknesses is invaluable. For example, there are numerous opportunities in this SWOT analysis example.
When going through a period of rapid growth within your business, you should take some time to conduct a SWOT analysis. This will help to ensure that you are able to reach your growth goals. Doing a SWOT also helps you identify any possible weaknesses that may become issues for your growth further down the line.
The weaknesses in this free SWOT analysis template for Word should be addressed quickly before they become a threat to the company.
A SWOT diagram can also be used to help evaluate employees’ work. You can assess your employees’ performances and provide detailed feedback, like in this SWOT analysis example.
Interested in more resources?
- Business letterhead templates
- Mind map templates
- Business pitch deck templates
- How to write a project plan
Personal SWOT analysis examples
In some circumstances, you might want to conduct a personal SWOT analysis to help evaluate your personal growth. If, for example, you were looking to move up the career ladder in your existing profession, or to change careers completely. If creating a personal SWOT analysis, you should slightly reposition your thinking regarding “threats”.
Comparing strengths and weaknesses directly can help give you clarity over areas that you can improve, like in this personal SWOT analysis example.
Rather than thinking about competitors or change in the market, think more about things that may hold you back personally – i.e. a lack of business finances , or an upcoming relocation, as you can see in this SWOT analysis example.
Consultant SWOT analysis templates
Consultants are in a unique position because they are looking to market themselves. Starting out as a consultant can be difficult, but conducting a SWOT analysis of yourself as a consultant can help you discover any unique selling points for your services.
You might also want to conduct a SWOT analysis when delivering work for clients. A SWOT can help inform any project or growth plans that you are recommending. The SWOT analysis example below makes a strong case for the business.
Take a look at page 4 of this consulting proposal template for an example of how to use SWOT analyses in a consulting proposal :
Looking for more consulting templates?
- Consulting proposal templates
- Business proposal templates
- Job proposal templates
You can actually edit any of our SWOT analysis templates above and add them to your Word document as an image file. We offer PNG or PNG HD download options.
Here’s another example of a SWOT analysis template you can create for your Word or Google Docs file:
Note: download capability is only available in a paid Venngage plan .
Similar to Word, you can edit any of our SWOT analysis examples above and download them as a PNG to add to your PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation. A Venngage Business user can also download the template as a PPTX file and upload it directly to your presentation as a slide.
Besides simple SWOT analysis templates, we also offer presentation templates containing SWOT charts:
How to visualize a SWOT analysis
There are many different ways you can visualize a SWOT analysis. Below we’ve outlined the main layouts you might want to use for your SWOT, and provided SWOT analysis examples for each.
Use a 2×2 grid system design
You could use a 2×2 grid system to evaluate your options . This is a good way to compare all data at once, as each box has a direct relationship with every other box. This makes it easier to think about a SWOT as a whole, in context – rather than as individual segments, like in this SWOT analysis example we shared earlier:
A 2×2 grid is easily stylized and a flexible design style, and you can use brand colors, shapes, or motifs. 2×2 grids are also useful in business reports that contain a lot of information, as they make it easy to digest all elements of the SWOT quickly.
Use a vertical list
You can also use a vertical list. Vertical list SWOT analysis templates work well for Word, within reports, on the internet, or if sending via email. If you’re doing this, make sure you make a visual distinction between each segment by using a box or leaving plenty of space.
This SWOT analysis example uses a vertical list with different colored boxes in its design:
Use a horizontal table
A SWOT template for Word needs to be vertical, but that type of SWOT diagram is less useful for PowerPoint, due to the orientation of presentation slides usually being in landscape.
In this case, you should use a horizontal table for your SWOT analysis template. This is good for presentations as it allows you to fill the entire screen with information. Again, just make sure to suitably differentiate the segments with color, graphics, or empty space between the columns, like in this free SWOT analysis template for PowerPoint:
SWOT analysis best practices & design tips
Whilst a SWOT diagram is a fairly straightforward evaluation model, there are a couple of SWOT best practice tips you should follow in order to maximize the effectiveness of your SWOT:
Use measurable and quantifiable statements in your SWOT
You should be able to evidence all of the points in your SWOT template, aka prove that you are good at the thing you said you are good at. Saying you increase your market share regularly is good, but saying you increase your market share 10% year over year is even better.
Make sure all areas of your business are represented when developing the SWOT
Get feedback from different departments on both what their strengths/weaknesses are, but ask what they think your strengths/weaknesses are. This SWOT analysis example has gathered feedback from multiple teams.
Try and keep the lists an even number
If you have 5 strengths, find 5 weaknesses. For every opportunity, try and write down a threat. This makes it easier to compare the categories in your SWOT template.
Have a goal in mind when doing your SWOT analysis
Whether this is developing a new project plan or business, or scaling your revenue – a SWOT diagram is particularly useful when there’s a definitive outcome you’re trying to achieve.
Don’t aim for the perfect SWOT list straight away
When you’re customizing your SWOT analysis template, start with much longer lists gathered in a brainstorming session and whittle the lists down. This brings us to…
Make sure your SWOT is thorough
Make sure you’ve thought about every possible strength, weakness, threat, and opportunity. A SWOT is only as valuable as the information you include, so make sure you do your due diligence during the analysis. Take inspiration from this SWOT analysis example.
Format your SWOT in a way that makes sense for multiple uses
If you plan to present your SWOT analysis to an executive at your company, make sure it is clear to understand, and presented in a way that makes it easy to take in all of the information at once – such as a 2×2 grid template. If it’s for a company presentation, use a horizontal SWOT analysis template for PowerPoint.
Think short, mid, and long term
Your product might be great now, but what could be happening in the next 6 months that might affect that? What about within the next year? Sure that competitor could be small fish now, but what about if they have an aggressive growth plan in place? You need to be prepared for that to stay ahead of the game, and that’s where a SWOT analysis template comes in.
Use clever design tricks
Use color in your SWOT matrix to help grab attention. Differentiate different areas of your SWOT, as this SWOT analysis template does.
FAQ about SWOT analysis templates
1. why is a swot analysis important.
It’s important to remember that your business doesn’t exist in a vacuum and that you should analyze both internal and external factors. A SWOT diagram will allow you to gain a good, thorough understanding of where your business sits within the wider market, as well as identify potential opportunities to explore.
The benefit of a SWOT analysis is that you can directly compare every individual letter to its three counterparts. You can explore the relationship between your strengths and your weaknesses, but also look at how your strengths could be used to help leverage opportunities, and assess the potential your strengths have to help improve your weaknesses.
2. What comes after a SWOT analysis?
Once your SWOT template is complete you can use the information you have gathered to inform your business’ strategic planning.
Spend some time thinking about:
- How you can continue to develop your strengths?
- How you can improve your weaknesses, what procedures can be put in place or training can you undertake to help with this?
- Also, think about how you can leverage your strengths to take advantage of the opportunities you’ve listed.
- Can your strengths be used to tackle any threats?
- What about your weaknesses, will they hold you back from pursuing the opportunities?
- Will your weaknesses further disadvantage you when it comes to your threat list?
Are you ready to create your SWOT analysis?
A SWOT analysis is an invaluable tool for evaluation and is particularly useful for small businesses or businesses in times of change. Make sure you follow these SWOT analysis best practice tips to maximize your evaluation opportunities and further your evaluation by conducting a thorough Competitor Analysis .
All of the SWOT analysis examples featured in this blog post are fully customizable SWOT analysis templates available for use on Venngage. You can also use our Smart Templates to create documents easily.
Once you’ve created your business or personal SWOT analysis, make sure to keep a copy safe for the next time you conduct an evaluation. With Venngage you can keep your work online or download a SWOT analysis PDF if you’re a Business user.
- Corporate Finance
- Mutual Funds
- Investing Essentials
Fundamental Analysis
- Portfolio Management
- Trading Essentials
- Technical Analysis
- Risk Management
- Company News
- Markets News
- Cryptocurrency News
- Personal Finance News
- Economic News
- Government News
- Wealth Management
- Budgeting/Saving
- Credit Cards
- Home Ownership
- Retirement Planning
- Best Online Brokers
- Best Savings Accounts
- Best Home Warranties
- Best Credit Cards
- Best Personal Loans
- Best Student Loans
- Best Life Insurance
- Best Auto Insurance
- Practice Management
- Financial Advisor Careers
- Investopedia 100
- Portfolio Construction
- Financial Planning
- Investing for Beginners
- Become a Day Trader
- Trading for Beginners
- All Courses
- Trading Courses
- Investing Courses
- Financial Professional Courses
What Is SWOT Analysis?
Understanding swot analysis, how to do a swot analysis.
- SWOT Analysis FAQs
The Bottom Line
Swot analysis: how to with table and example.
These frameworks are essential to fundamentally analyzing companies
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/wk_headshot_aug_2018_02__william_kenton-5bfc261446e0fb005118afc9.jpg "business plan checklist with swot analysis")
Ariel Courage is an experienced editor, researcher, and former fact-checker. She has performed editing and fact-checking work for several leading finance publications, including The Motley Fool and Passport to Wall Street.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/ArielCourage-50e270c152b046738d83fb7355117d67.jpg "business plan checklist with swot analysis")
Investopedia / Xiaojie Liu
SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework used to evaluate a company's competitive position and to develop strategic planning. SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future potential.
A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, initiatives, or within its industry. The organization needs to keep the analysis accurate by avoiding pre-conceived beliefs or gray areas and instead focusing on real-life contexts. Companies should use it as a guide and not necessarily as a prescription.
Key Takeaways
- SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that provides assessment tools.
- Identifying core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats leads to fact-based analysis, fresh perspectives, and new ideas.
- A SWOT analysis pulls information internal sources (strengths of weaknesses of the specific company) as well as external forces that may have uncontrollable impacts to decisions (opportunities and threats).
- SWOT analysis works best when diverse groups or voices within an organization are free to provide realistic data points rather than prescribed messaging.
- Findings of a SWOT analysis are often synthesized to support a single objective or decision that a company is facing.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is a technique for assessing the performance, competition, risk, and potential of a business, as well as part of a business such as a product line or division, an industry, or other entity.
Using internal and external data , the technique can guide businesses toward strategies more likely to be successful, and away from those in which they have been, or are likely to be, less successful. Independent SWOT analysts, investors, or competitors can also guide them on whether a company, product line, or industry might be strong or weak and why.
SWOT analysis was first used to analyze businesses. Now, it's often used by governments, nonprofits, and individuals, including investors and entrepreneurs. There is seemingly limitless applications to the SWOT analysis.
Components of SWOT Analysis
Every SWOT analysis will include the following four categories. Though the elements and discoveries within these categories will vary from company to company, a SWOT analysis is not complete without each of these elements:
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
Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage. For example, if a country cuts tariffs, a car manufacturer can export its cars into a new market, increasing sales and market share .
Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm an organization. For example, a drought is a threat to a wheat-producing company, as it may destroy or reduce the crop yield. Other common threats include things like rising costs for materials, increasing competition, tight labor supply. and so on.
Analysts present a SWOT analysis as a square segmented into four quadrants, each dedicated to an element of SWOT. This visual arrangement provides a quick overview of the company’s position. Although all the points under a particular heading may not be of equal importance, they all should represent key insights into the balance of opportunities and threats, advantages and disadvantages, and so forth.
The SWOT table is often laid out with the internal factors on the top row and the external factors on the bottom row. In addition, the items on the left side of the table are more positive/favorable aspects, while the items on the right are more concerning/negative elements.
A SWOT analysis can be broken into several steps with actionable items before and after analyzing the four components. In general, a SWOT analysis will involve the following steps.
Step 1: Determine Your Objective
A SWOT analysis can be broad, though more value will likely be generated if the analysis is pointed directly at an objective. For example, the objective of a SWOT analysis may focused only on whether or not to perform a new product rollout . With an objective in mind, a company will have guidance on what they hope to achieve at the end of the process. In this example, the SWOT analysis should help determine whether or not the product should be introduced.
Step 2: Gather Resources
Every SWOT analysis will vary, and a company may need different data sets to support pulling together different SWOT analysis tables. A company should begin by understanding what information it has access to, what data limitations it faces, and how reliable its external data sources are.
In addition to data, a company should understand the right combination of personnel to have involved in the analysis. Some staff may be more connected with external forces, while various staff within the manufacturing or sales departments may have a better grasp of what is going on internally. Having a broad set of perspectives is also more likely to yield diverse, value-adding contributions.
Step 3: Compile Ideas
For each of the four components of the SWOT analysis, the group of people assigned to performing the analysis should begin listing ideas within each category. Examples of questions to ask or consider for each group are in the table below.
Internal Factors
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:
- (Strength) What are we doing well?
- (Strength) What is our strongest asset?
- (Weakness) What are our detractors?
- (Weakness) What are our lowest-performing product lines?
External Factors
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:
- (Opportunity) What trends are evident in the marketplace?
- (Opportunity) What demographics are we not targeting?
- (Threat) How many competitors exist, and what is their market share?
- (Threat) Are there new regulations that potentially could harm our operations or products?
Companies may consider performing this step as a "white-boarding" or "sticky note" session. The idea is there is no right or wrong answer; all participants should be encouraged to share whatever thoughts they have. These ideas can later be discarded; in the meantime, the goal should be to come up with as many items as possible to invoke creativity and inspiration in others.
Step 4: Refine Findings
With the list of ideas within each category, it is now time to clean-up the ideas. By refining the thoughts that everyone had, a company can focus on only the best ideas or largest risks to the company. This stage may require substantial debate among analysis participants, including bringing in upper management to help rank priorities.
Step 5: Develop the Strategy
Armed with the ranked list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, it is time to convert the SWOT analysis into a strategic plan. Members of the analysis team take the bulleted list of items within each category and create a synthesized plan that provides guidance on the original objective.
For example, the company debating whether to release a new product may have identified that it is the market leader for its existing product and there is the opportunity to expand to new markets. However, increased material costs, strained distribution lines, the need for additional staff, and unpredictable product demand may outweigh the strengths and opportunities. The analysis team develops the strategy to revisit the decision in six months in hopes of costs declining and market demand becoming more transparent.
Use a SWOT analysis to identify challenges affecting your business and opportunities that can enhance it. However, note that it is one of many techniques, not a prescription.
Benefits of SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis won't solve every major question a company has. However, there's a number of benefits to a SWOT analysis that make strategic decision-making easier.
- A SWOT analysis makes complex problems more manageable. There may be an overwhelming amount of data to analyze and relevant points to consider when making a complex decision. In general, a SWOT analysis that has been prepared by paring down all ideas and ranking bullets by importance will aggregate a large, potentially overwhelming problem into a more digestible report.
- A SWOT analysis requires external consider. Too often, a company may be tempted to only consider internal factors when making decisions. However, there are often items out of the company's control that may influence the outcome of a business decision. A SWOT analysis covers both the internal factors a company can manage and the external factors that may be more difficult to control.
- A SWOT analysis can be applied to almost every business question. The analysis can relate to an organization, team, or individual. It can also analyze a full product line , changes to brand, geographical expansion, or an acquisition. The SWOT analysis is a versatile tool that has many applications.
- A SWOT analysis leverages different data sources. A company will likely use internal information for strengths and weaknesses. The company will also need to gather external information relating to broad markets, competitors, or macroeconomic forces for opportunities and threats. Instead of relying on a single, potentially biased source, a good SWOT analysis compiles various angles.
- A SWOT analysis may not be overly costly to prepare. Some SWOT reports do not need to overly technical; therefore, many different staff members can contribute to its preparation without training or external consulting.
SWOT Analysis Example
In 2015, a Value Line SWOT analysis of The Coca-Cola Company noted strengths such as its globally famous brand name, vast distribution network, and opportunities in emerging markets. However, it also noted weaknesses and threats such as foreign currency fluctuations, growing public interest in "healthy" beverages, and competition from healthy beverage providers.
Its SWOT analysis prompted Value Line to pose some tough questions about Coca-Cola's strategy, but also to note that the company "will probably remain a top-tier beverage provider" that offered conservative investors "a reliable source of income and a bit of capital gains exposure."
Five years later, the Value Line SWOT analysis proved effective as Coca-Cola remains the 6th strongest brand in the world (as it was then). Coca-Cola's shares (traded under ticker symbol KO) have increased in value by over 60% during the five years after the analysis was completed.
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.
What Is an Example of SWOT Analysis?
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.S. market, and a replicable business model were listed as its weaknesses.
Closely related to its weaknesses, Home Depot's threats were the presence of close rivals, available substitutes, and the condition of the U.S. market. It found from this study and other analysis that expanding its supply chain and global footprint would be key to its growth.
What Are the 4 Steps of SWOT Analysis?
The four steps of SWOT analysis comprise the acronym SWOT: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These four aspects can be broken into two analytical steps. First, a company assesses its internal capabilities and determines its strengths and weaknesses. Then, a company looks outward and evaluates external factors that impact its business. These external factors may create opportunities or threaten existing operations.
How Do You Write a Good SWOT Analysis?
Creating a SWOT analysis involves identifying and analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a company. It is recommended to first create a list of questions to answer for each element. The questions serve as a guide for completing the SWOT analysis and creating a balanced list. The SWOT framework can be constructed in list format, as free text, or, most commonly, as a 4-cell table, with quadrants dedicated to each element. Strengths and weaknesses are listed first, followed by opportunities and threats.
Why Is SWOT Analysis Used?
A SWOT analysis is used to strategically identify areas of improvement or competitive advantages for a company. In addition to analyzing thing that a company does well, SWOT analysis takes a look at more detrimental, negative elements of a business. Using this information, a company can make smarter decisions to preserve what it does well, capitalize on its strengths, mitigate risk regarding weaknesses, and plan for events that may adversely affect the company in the future.
A SWOT analysis is a great way to guide business-strategy meetings. It's powerful to have everyone in the room discuss the company's core strengths and weaknesses, define the opportunities and threats, and brainstorm ideas. Oftentimes, the SWOT analysis you envision before the session changes throughout to reflect factors you were unaware of and would never have captured if not for the group’s input.
A company can use a SWOT for overall business strategy sessions or for a specific segment such as marketing, production, or sales. This way, you can see how the overall strategy developed from the SWOT analysis will filter down to the segments below before committing to it. You can also work in reverse with a segment-specific SWOT analysis that feeds into an overall SWOT analysis.
Although a useful planning tool, SWOT has limitations. It is one of several business planning techniques to consider and should not be used alone. Also, each point listed within the categories is not prioritized the same. SWOT does not account for the differences in weight. Therefore, a deeper analysis is needed, using another planning technique.
Business News Daily. " SWOT Analysis: What It Is and When to Use It ."
Value Line. " The Coca-Cola Company: A Short SWOT Analysis ."
Panmore. " Home Depot SWOT Analysis & Recommendations ."
Financial Analysis
Communications Companies
How to Start a Business
Business Essentials
- Terms of Use
- Editorial Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Do Not Sell My Personal Information
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
- Platform overview
- Perform Inspections
- Create reports
- Capture Issues
- Assign actions
- Workplace communications
- Insights and data
- Build workflows
- Integrate your tools
- Automated Monitoring
- SafetyCulture Marketplace
- Construction
- Hospitality
- Manufacturing
- Transport & Logistics
- Facilities Management
- Incident Management
- Risk Management
- ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management
- ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management
- ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health & Safety Management
- Partner Program
- Help Center
- Digitize your form
- Product updates
- Getting started with SafetyCulture Platform
- Getting started with Issues
- Getting started with Heads up
- Events & Webinars
- Checklist Library
- ROI Calculator
- Checklist guides
- Topic guides
- Certifications
- About SafetyCulture
- Brand Partnerships
- Customer stories
- SWOT Analysis
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
Know more about SWOT analyses and how having one can help with your business processes.
Published 24 Nov 2022 | By Tiffany Argent, Roselin Manawis
What is a SWOT Analysis?
A SWOT analysis is a document that aims to analyze a certain individual, team, or organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT). SWOT analysis is commonly used in businesses as part of their effort to improve existing processes or create new ones.
The idea of SWOT can be credited to Albert Humphrey , who developed it in the 1960s and 1970s during his stay at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He came up with the idea while he was conducting a study to identify and understand the reasons why certain corporate plans and their methods repeatedly failed. In order to help companies create more long-term and sustainable ways of corporate planning, he developed the SWOT framework.
Today, conducting a SWOT analysis has become more commonplace. The primary purpose and goal of conducting a SWOT analysis are to analyze and reinforce one’s business strategies by assessing the business’s strengths, weaknesses, potential opportunities, and threats in its specific target market.
- What is the Purpose of a SWOT Analysis?
The main purpose of a SWOT analysis is to improve a business’s plans, products, and services. Similar to the Lean and Kaizen frameworks, a SWOT analysis can also be used for continuous improvement, as it encourages leaders and their staff to consciously note their strengths and weaknesses and discuss points of change. Having a SWOT analysis can also help with setting relevant, attainable, and sustainable goals.
A SWOT analysis can be used at any step of a business plan to organize thoughts, improve discussions, and better understand goals, but it is highly recommended to use one during any project or policy discussion’s planning stage . Using a SWOT analysis before any company action, new initiative, and policy change can aid in assessing the current landscape of one’s business first, which can help with making decisions in general. Doing so can also help identify the exact points for improvement early on, which helps lessen the chances of making large unnecessary changes and overhauls. In this way, a SWOT analysis can also help in saving time, and money, and preventing major risks, making it an important planning tool.
- How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis
When it comes down to identifying one’s SWOT traits, ask the questions :
- Strengths: What are the company’s advantages over others?
- Weaknesses: In what way is the company underperforming or having issues?
- Opportunities: What are points of improvement for the company internally or externally? Where can new technologies and strategies be implemented?
- Threats: How can the company be put at risk? What factors can put the company at a disadvantage compared to its competitors?
The process followed is the way the name is structured, that is, in the order of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Identify the company’s strengths and weaknesses first, then the opportunities they can have based on them, and the threats that may come their way.
Listing down weaknesses and threats in particular plays a large role in highlighting company issues, as noting internal and external issues together helps paint a coherent picture of company affairs. On the other hand, identifying strengths and opportunities help motivate the company employees better, work harder, and create goals.
The typical SWOT analysis is done in a table with four columns, with each column corresponding to Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. In some cases, rather than a four-column table, others opt to use a 2×2 table instead, with the top rows corresponding to Strengths and Weaknesses, while the bottom row is for listing Opportunities and Threats.
Besides tables, a new way of conducting a SWOT analysis is through checklists. While not necessarily as visual, using a checklist makes it easier to conduct a SWOT analysis on the go thanks to its straightforward structure and ease of use. A checklist is also easier to modify as needed, making it easier for multi-industry use. Digital checklists, in particular, are best for on-the-go and flexible use.
Create Your Own SWOT Analysis Template
Eliminate manual tasks and streamline your operations.
- SWOT Analysis Example
To better illustrate how a SWOT analysis works, here is an example:
A certain canned beverage company would like to improve its marketing strategies for the incoming fiscal year. To do so, they decided to conduct a SWOT analysis on themselves.
With these findings in mind, the company went on to try predicting and analyzing their Opportunities and Threats based on them.
The main Opportunity that the company found was that they can easily branch out to more markets and countries with their influence. Other Opportunities the company found that they could tap into is utilizing social media for better promoting their products and for targeting a younger audience. Using new means of advertisement was never really a priority for them, but this finding has caused them to reconsider.
On the other hand, however, the company found that the advancement in technologies may also be a Threat to their business. They acknowledge that they may not be able to keep up with it, and this is something that they need to change.
Following its SWOT analysis, the beverage company has decided to invest more in digital advertising and marketing. After seeing successful results from the change, the company decided to carry on with it and conduct another SWOT analysis the next year.
- SafetyCulture as a SWOT Analysis Tool
Example of SWOT Analysis
For creating and maintaining a SWOT analysis, consider using SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor) . SafetyCulture is a cloud-based digital tool that can be used to create checklists, report Issues , and address problems anytime and anywhere. With SafetyCulture, a SWOT analysis can now be done on the go and even when teams are working away from each other.
To get started, create your own SWOT analysis checklists or use and modify one from the Public Library as needed. There is also the option to convert your existing SWOT analysis Excel template, PowerPoint presentation, or Word document into a SafetyCulture checklist for free, allowing you to store your template in the cloud and access it whenever you need it. Using SafetyCulture also allows you to share your templates and completed reports with your team, company, or specific people only, maintaining privacy and confidentiality while also promoting collaboration among key members.
Other things SafetyCulture can help with are:
- Assigning corrective Actions to specific members to help address Weaknesses and Threats
- Sharing important information or findings with the whole organization or team via Heads Up
- Providing a visual representation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats discussed or observed using the Analytics feature
- Sharing finished forms as a link, PDF, or Word file .
- FAQs about SWOT Analysis
As a SWOT analysis can be done for self-improvement, anyone can do it on their own. However, for corporations and teams, it is more common for the CEO or other key leaders to take initiative in conducting a SWOT analysis, as they will have the most ideas. On the other hand, sometimes, the leader in charge may choose to assign someone in their team to lead the discussion and generate ideas instead.
A TOWS analysis is considered a counterpart or extension of the SWOT analysis. While SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, TOWS stands for Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Strengths. This means a TOWS analysis starts with analyzing external factors first before internal ones, unlike a SWOT analysis that looks to prioritize internal findings and issues first. Adopting both frameworks can help greatly in creating business plans.
Some common complementary frameworks or analyses that can be used with a SWOT analysis are:
- Environmental analysis techniques
- Gap analysis techniques
- TOWS framework
- PESTLE framework
- Scenario planning
- Other strategic analysis frameworks
PESTLE is an analytical framework that focuses on understanding a business’ macro-environment by analyzing its Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental (PESTLE) factors. The main difference between the two is that a SWOT analysis focuses on addressing a business’ internal issues or making changes internally, while a PESTLE analysis focuses on the external factors instead.
- Related Template
SWOT Analysis Checklist
Use this template to analyse strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to a business ssytematically. A diverse range of colleagues should be involved in conducting a SWOT analysis, which should be reviewed at least annually or if there are any significant changes internally or externally.
- Download Template
Customer Engagement Executive
Tiffany Argent
Tiffany is the Head of Customer QSHE Services at SafetyCulture, a chartered member of IOSH and an IOSH mentor with 17 years of health and safety management experience in freight forwarding, warehouse operations, science and manufacturing.
In this article
Relevant articles, employee engagement.
Employee engagement may be influenced by various factors such as workplace culture, leadership, and ...
Journey Management
In this guide, you will learn what journey management is, why it’s important, and the most ...
- Process Analysis
Benefits Business process analysis is consequential to a company’s growth. Whether you work as a ...
Related pages
- Contingency Plan Template
- Project Execution Plan Template
- Project Plan Template
- Project Initiation Document Template
- PDSA Template
- Work Instruction
- Supply Chain Sustainability
- Data Management
- Process Management
- Task Management Software
- Corporate Social Responsibility Software
- GRC Software
- 10 Team Management Apps
- Product Management Software
We use cookies to provide necessary website functionality and improve your experience. To find out more, read our updated Privacy Policy .
Develop your SWOT analysis
Last Updated: 4 August 2021
You can better understand your businesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats by using a SWOT analysis. Identify what your business is doing well and how you can improve with our SWOT analysis template.
On this page
Why you need a swot analysis, download our swot analysis template, complete your swot analysis, use your swot analysis.
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your business.
Developing a SWOT analysis can help you look at your business in a new way and from different directions. It can also help you to:
- create or fine tune your business strategy
- prioritise areas for business growth to achieve your business goals.
Our template can help you develop your SWOT analysis.
SWOT template
You can start the process by gathering a group of employees or advisors who have different perspectives on your business. If you don’t have employees, you can ask family members, business advisors or mentors. The key is to have different points of view.
Using the prompting questions below as a guide, you can conduct a brainstorming session to discuss ideas about each SWOT category. After brainstorming, create a final prioritised list of points in our SWOT analysis template. List the factors in each category from highest to lowest priority.
Consider your strengths
Strengths are internal, positive parts of your business. These are things that are within your control. Ask yourself:
- What do we do well?
- What do we do better than our competition?
- What unique assets do we have internally (such as knowledge, background, network, reputation or skills) and externally (such as customers, patents, technology or capital)?
- What positive aspects of the business give us a competitive advantage?
Consider your weaknesses
Weaknesses are internal, negative factors. These are things that you might need to improve on to be competitive. Ask yourself:
- What and where can we improve?
- What do our competitors do better?
- Where are the gaps in our assets and resources (such as knowledge, cash or equipment)?
- Is the thing that sets us apart from our competition obvious?
- How can we improve business processes?
Consider your opportunities
Opportunities are external, positive factors that may give a competitive advantage and contribute to success. Ask yourself:
- What trends can we use to our advantage to increase use of our product or service?
- Are there any changes or events that might positively impact us (such as consumer behaviour, regulation, policies or new technology)?
- Has anything changed in the market that creates opportunity for us?
- Do the public like us?
Consider your threats
Threats include external factors beyond your control that may put your business at risk. Consider putting in place contingency plans for dealing with them if they occur. Ask yourself:
- What factors beyond our control could place us at risk?
- What potential competitors may enter the market?
- Are our resource and material supplies unstable or insecure?
- Are there any changes or events that might negatively impact us (such as consumer behaviour, regulation, policies or new technology)?
Once you have completed your SWOT analysis, it can be used to develop strategies for achieving your business goals. You can create a plan to continue building on your strengths while improving on your weaknesses. When using your SWOT analysis to create a strategy, ask yourself:
- How can we use our strengths to take advantage of our opportunities?
- How can we use our strengths to minimise our threats?
- What do we need to do to overcome and minimise our identified weaknesses?
Develop a risk management plan to prepare and protect your business.
Develop your marketing plan
Learn how to research your market, your competitors and potential customers.
- Acknowledgement of Country
- Service availability
Quick links
- Accessibility
- Legal notices
- Other languages
Related Sites
- Business Registration Service
- Australian Business Licence and Information Service
© Commonwealth of Australia.
How To Write a SWOT Analysis For a Business Plan
An acronym standing for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, a SWOT Analysis is designed to help you analyze your company’s capabilities against the realities of your business environment. Doing so allows you to direct your business toward areas where your abilities are the strongest and your opportunities are abundant. It also allows you to develop short and long-term strategies for your business. A well-developed SWOT analysis will:
- capture business opportunities by capitalizing on business strengths
- overcome weaknesses to take advantage of business opportunities
- monitor potentially threatening outside forces while maintaining or developing internal strength response capabilities
- eliminate weaknesses to protect your business from threats
Writing a SWOT Analysis
When writing your SWOT Analysis, we recommend involving employees with different perspectives and stakes in your company, for example, management, sales, customer service, and customers.
To write a SWOT Analysis for a business plan, we recommend following these four steps. You can use a four-square SWOT Analysis template, or if more manageable, you can make lists for each category.
Example of a four-square template:
After you’ve gathered the right group of employees together, brainstorm your company’s strengths and weaknesses and its opportunities and threats, first individually and then collectively.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your company and can change over time with work. Examples of internal factors include:
- Company culture
- Company image
- Operational efficiency
- Operational capacity
- Brand awareness
- Market share
- Financial resources
- Organizational structure
Opportunities and threats are external, happening whether you want them to or not, and can’t be changed. Examples of external factors include:
- Societal changes
- Competitors
- Economic environment
- Government regulations
- Market trends
Strengths refer to the positive, tangible and intangible attributes internal to your company that are within your control.
To help you determine what your company’s strengths are, ask yourself:
- What does the company do well?
- The positive attributes of your employees (knowledge, background, education, credentials, network, reputation, or skills)
- The tangible assets of the company (capital, credit, existing customers or distribution channels, patents, or technology)
- What advantages does the company have over our competitors?
- Do we have strong research and development capabilities? What about manufacturing facilities?
- What other positive aspects, internal to the business, add value or offer us a competitive advantage?
Any aspect of your business that detracts from the value you offer or places you at a competitive disadvantage is a weakness. To determine your company’s weaknesses, ask yourself these questions:
- What factors detract from a competitive edge?
- To accomplish my objectives or compete with my strongest competitor, what areas need to improve?
- What does the business lack? Is it expertise? Maybe it’s access to skills or technology?
- Does the company have limited resources?
- Is my business in a poor location?
Opportunities
Opportunities are attractive external factors that denote reasons your business is likely to thrive. To identify your business opportunities, ask yourself:
- What opportunities are there in my market or my environment that I can benefit from?
- Does my business have a positive perception?
- Has my market recently grown, or have there been other changes that have created an opportunity?
- Is this opportunity ongoing or time-limited? How critical is my timing?
Any external factor beyond your control that could place your strategy, or the business itself, at risk is a threat. Although you have no control over threats, you can benefit by having a contingency plan to address them if and when they occur. To identify threats, ask yourself:
- Who are my existing or potential competitors?
- What factors beyond my control could place my business at risk?
- Are there challenges created by an unfavourable trend or development that could lead to declining revenues or profits?
- What situations could threaten my marketing efforts?
- Have supplier prices or the availability of raw materials significantly changed?
- Are there any shifts in consumer behaviour, the economy, or government regulations that could reduce my sales?
- Are any of my products, equipment, or services obsolete due to the introduction of a new product or technology in the market?
Once you’ve brainstormed your lists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, we recommend ranking them through a voting process. At the end of this process, you should have a prioritized list of ideas, with one person, usually the CEO, having the final call on priority.
Divide your strengths into two groups:
- Group 1: Strengths that can help you take advantage of opportunities facing your business.
- Group 2: Strengths that can help you head off potential threats.
Divide your weaknesses into two groups:
- Group 1: Weaknesses that require improvement before you can take advantage of opportunities.
- Group 2: Weaknesses that you need to completely and quickly overhaul and convert into strengths to avert potential threats to your business.
Continually refer to your lists as you make decisions that contribute to your business, including developing strategies and actions for capitalizing on opportunities. Questions that can guide your decision making include:
- Do strengths open any opportunities?
- How can we convert weaknesses to strengths?
- What do we have to do to take advantage of opportunities?
- How can we best neutralize threats?
SWOT Analysis For a Business Plan Conclusion
Once you have finalized your SWOT Analysis and added it to your business plan, don’t just leave it and forget it. A SWOT Analysis is a crucial element in any business plan and should be revisited regularly, at least annually.
Suppose your business is facing significant changes in the marketplace or competitive conditions, experiencing growth problems, or failing to meet goals. In that case, you may want to revisit your SWOT Analysis more frequently.
It should reflect the world around you as it is, not the way it was. It’s an invaluable tool for leveraging your company’s strengths, minimizing threats, taking advantage of available opportunities, strategic planning, and determining company objectives.
At Bsbcon, we are available to provide support and guidance with your company’s SWOT Analysis, ensuring that it reflects the current state of your business and considers all factors needed to ensure your business’s short and long-term goals and successes. Once your SWOT Analysis is complete, we will work with you to incorporate it seamlessly into your business plan.
Each of our business plans are tailor-made (no templates or plugins!) and designed to be easily implementable in practice. We have business plans for bank loans, investors, strategic purposes, immigration, and more.
Contact us today to get started on accomplishing everything you’ve dreamed with consumer-tested, expert panel-approved business plans that outline your steps to success.
How can we help you?
Get in touch with us or visit our office
- United States
- How We're Different
- The Growth Planning Process
See It In Action
- How It Works
- Interactive Product Tour
- One-Page Plan
- Step-by-Step Guidance
- 500+ Sample Plans
- Automatic Financials
- Lender-Ready Themes
- Financial Performance Tracking
- See All Features
For Small Businesses
- Create a Plan for Funding
- Create a Plan for Strategy
- Test a Business Idea
- Build & Present Financials
- Budgeting & Performance Management
- Get Professional Plan Writing Help
Solutions for
- Consultants and Coaches
- SBA Partners
- Incubators & Accelerators
- Public Accountants
- Education Hub
- LivePlan Blog
- Customer Success Stories
- Ebooks & Templates
- Webinars & Events
- Help Center
0 results have been found for “”
Return to blog home
What Is a SWOT Analysis and How to Do It Right (With Examples)
Posted february 2, 2021 by noah parsons.
A SWOT analysis is an incredibly simple, yet powerful tool to help you develop your business strategy, whether you’re building a startup or guiding an existing company.
What is a SWOT Analysis?
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your company—things that you have some control over and can change. Examples include who is on your team, your patents and intellectual property, and your location.
Opportunities and threats are external—things that are going on outside your company, in the larger market. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change them. Examples include competitors, prices of raw materials, and customer shopping trends.
A SWOT analysis organizes your top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats into an organized list and is usually presented in a simple two-by-two grid. Go ahead and download our free template if you just want to dive right in and get started.
Why do a SWOT Analysis?
When you take the time to do a SWOT analysis, you’ll be armed with a solid strategy for prioritizing the work that you need to do to grow your business.
You may think that you already know everything that you need to do to succeed, but a SWOT analysis will force you to look at your business in new ways and from new directions. You’ll look at your strengths and weaknesses, and how you can leverage those to take advantage of the opportunities and threats that exist in your market.
Who should do a SWOT Analysis?
For a SWOT analysis to be effective, company founders and leaders need to be deeply involved. This isn’t a task that can be delegated to others.
But, company leadership shouldn’t do the work on their own , either. For best results, you’ll want to gather a group of people who have different perspectives on the company. Select people who can represent different aspects of your company, from sales and customer service to marketing and product development. Everyone should have a seat at the table.
Innovative companies even look outside their own internal ranks when they perform a SWOT analysis and get input from customers to add their unique voice to the mix.
If you’re starting or running a business on your own, you can still do a SWOT analysis. Recruit additional points of view from friends who know a little about your business, your accountant, or even vendors and suppliers. The key is to have different points of view.
Existing businesses can use a SWOT analysis to assess their current situation and determine a strategy to move forward . But, remember that things are constantly changing and you’ll want to reassess your strategy, starting with a new SWOT analysis every six to 12 months.
For startups, a SWOT analysis is part of the business planning process. It’ll help codify a strategy so that you start off on the right foot and know the direction that you plan to go.
How to do a SWOT analysis the right way
As I mentioned above, you want to gather a team of people together to work on a SWOT analysis. You don’t need an all-day retreat to get it done, though. One or two hours should be more than plenty.
1. Gather the right people
Gather people from different parts of your company and make sure that you have representatives from every department and team. You’ll find that different groups within your company will have entirely different perspectives that will be critical to making your SWOT analysis successful.
2. 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. I suggest giving everyone a pad of sticky-notes and have everyone quietly generate ideas on their own to start things off. This prevents groupthink and ensures that all voices are heard.
After five to 10 minutes of private brainstorming, put all the sticky-notes up on the wall and group similar ideas together. Allow anyone to add additional notes at this point if someone else’s idea sparks a new thought.
3. Rank the ideas
Once all of the ideas are organized, it’s time to rank the ideas. I like using a voting system where everyone gets five or ten “votes” that they can distribute in any way they like. Sticky dots in different colors are useful for this portion of the exercise.
Based on the voting exercise, you should have a prioritized list of ideas. Of course, the list is now up for discussion and debate, and someone in the room should be able to make the final call on the priority. This is usually the CEO, but it could be delegated to someone else in charge of business strategy.
You’ll want to follow this process of generating ideas for each of the four quadrants of your SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Questions that can help inspire your analysis
Here are a few questions that you can ask your team when you’re building your SWOT analysis. These questions can help explain each section and spark creative thinking.
Strengths are internal, positive attributes of your company. These are things that are within your control.
- What business processes are successful?
- What assets do you have in your teams? (ie. knowledge, education, network, skills, and reputation)
- What physical assets do you have, such as customers, equipment, technology, cash, and patents?
- What competitive advantages do you have over your competition?
Weaknesses are negative factors that detract from your strengths. These are things that you might need to improve on to be competitive.
- Are there things that your business needs to be competitive?
- What business processes need improvement?
- Are there tangible assets that your company needs, such as money or equipment?
- Are there gaps on your team?
- Is your location ideal for your success?
Opportunities
Opportunities are external factors in your business environment that are likely to contribute to your success.
- Is your market growing and are there trends that will encourage people to buy more of what you are selling?
- Are there upcoming events that your company may be able to take advantage of to grow the business?
- Are there upcoming changes to regulations that might impact your company positively?
- If your business is up and running, do customers think highly of you?
Threats are external factors that you have no control over. You may want to consider putting in place contingency plans for dealing with them if they occur.
- Do you have potential competitors who may enter your market?
- Will suppliers always be able to supply the raw materials you need at the prices you need?
- Could future developments in technology change how you do business?
- Is consumer behavior changing in a way that could negatively impact your business?
- Are there market trend s that could become a threat?
SWOT Analysis example
To help you get a better sense of what at SWOT example actually looks like, we’re going to look at UPer Crust Pies, a specialty meat and fruit pie cafe in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They sell hot, ready-to-go pies and frozen take-home options, as well as an assortment of fresh salads and beverages.
The company is planning to open its first location in downtown Yubetchatown and is very focused on developing a business model that will make it easy to expand quickly and that opens up the possibility of franchising. Here’s what their SWOT analysis might look like:
SWOT analysis for UPer Crust Pies
How to use your SWOT Analysis
With your SWOT analysis complete, you’re ready to convert it into a real strategy. After all, the exercise is about producing a strategy that you can work on during the next few months.
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?
You’ll also want to do this by analyzing how external opportunities might help you combat your own, internal weaknesses. Can you also minimize those weaknesses so you can avoid the threats that you identified?
Again, you’ll have an action list that you’ll want to prioritize and schedule.
UPer Crust Pies — Potential strategies for growth
Back to the UPer Crust Pies example: Based on their SWOT analysis, here are a few potential strategies for growth to help you think through how to translate your SWOT into actionable goals.
- Investigate investors. UPer Crust Pies might investigate its options for obtaining capital.
- Create a marketing plan. Because UPer Crust Pies wants to execute a specific marketing strategy—targeting working families by emphasizing that their dinner option is both healthy and convenient—the company should develop a marketing plan.
- Plan a grand opening. A key piece of that marketing plan will be the store’s grand opening, and the promotional strategies necessary to get UPer Crust Pies’ target market in the door.
Next steps with your SWOT Analysis
With your goals and actions in hand, you’ll be a long way toward completing a strategic plan for your business. 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.
If you have additional ideas for how a SWOT analysis can help your business and how it fits into your regular business planning, I’d love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter @noahparsons .
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2018 and updated for 2021.
Noah Parsons
Posted in management , growth & metrics.
Free Business Plan Templates in Excel
Smartsheet Contributor Joe Weller
September 27, 2020
In this article, we’ve rounded up an extensive list of free business plan templates and samples for organizations of all sizes. You can download all of the plans in Excel.
Included on this page, you’ll find business plan templates in Excel , business plan checklists in Excel , business plan financial templates in Excel , and more.
Business Plan Templates in Excel
These Excel business plan templates are designed to guide you through each step of a well-rounded strategy that supports your marketing, sales, financial, and operational goals.
Business Plan Template in Excel
This Excel business plan template has all the traditional components of a standard business plan, with each section divided into tabs. This template includes space to provide the executive summary, target audience characteristics, product or service offering details, marketing strategies, and more. The plan also offers built-in formulas to complete calculations for sales forecasting, financial statements, and key business ratios.
Download Business Plan Template
Excel | Smartsheet
One-Page Business Plan in Excel
To check the feasibility of your business concept, use this single-page business plan template. The template allows you to jot down the core details related to your idea. This template also includes room for you to provide concise information about what you do, how you do it, why you do it, who your idea serves, your competitive advantage, your marketing strategies, and your success factors. At the bottom of this one-page plan, you’ll find a table to conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Find more downloadable single-page plans and examples at “ One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide .”
Download One-Page Business Plan
Excel | Word | PDF | Smartsheet
Sample 30-60-90-Day Business Plan for Startup in Excel
This 90-day business plan is designed for startup companies to develop a 90-day action plan. This template gives you room to outline the following: main goals and deliverables for each 30-day increment; key business activities; task ownership; and deadlines. This template also includes a built-in Gantt chart that adjusts as you enter dates. Visit “ 30-60-90-Day Business Plan Templates and Samples ” to download more free plans.
Download 30-60-90-Day Business Plan for Startup
For more free business plans in a wider variety of formats, visit “ Simple Business Plan Templates .”
Business Plan Checklists in Excel
These business plan checklists are useful for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business owners who want to organize and track the progress of key business activities.
Business Planning Checklist with Timeline in Excel
Use this checklist to keep your business planning efforts on track. This template enables you to add tasks according to each phase of your plan, assign an owner to each task, and enter the respective start and end dates. The checklist also enables you to create and color-code a visual timeline when you highlight the start and end dates for each task.
Download Business Planning Checklist with Timeline Template
Business Plan Checklist with SWOT Analysis in Excel
Use this business plan checklist to develop and organize your strategic plan. Add the name of the business activity, along with its status, due date, and pertinent notes. This template also includes a separate tab with a SWOT analysis matrix, so you can evaluate and prioritize your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Download Business Plan Checklist with SWOT Analysis - Excel
Business Startup Checklist in Excel
This checklist template is ideal for startup organizations. It allows you to list and categorize key tasks that you need to complete, including items related to research, strategic relationships, finance, development, and more. Check off each task upon completion to ensure you haven’t missed or overlooked any important business activities. Find additional resources by visiting “ Free Startup Plan, Budget & Cost Templates .”
Download Business Startup Checklist Template
Business Plan Financial Templates in Excel
Use these customizable templates to develop your organization’s financial plan.
Business Startup Costs Template in Excel
Use this template to estimate and track your startup and operational costs. This template gives you room to list line items for both funding and expenses; you can automatically calculate totals using the built-in formulas. To avoid overspending, compare budgeted amounts against actual amounts to determine where you can cut costs or find additional funding.
Download Business Startup Costs Template
Small-Business Budget Template in Excel
This simple business budget template is designed with small businesses in mind. The template helps you track the income and expenses that you accrue on a monthly and yearly basis. To log your cash balances and transactions for a given time frame, use the tab for cash flow recording.
Download Small-Business Budget Template - Excel
Startup Financial Statement Projections Template
This financial statement projections template includes a detailed profit and loss statement (or income statement), a balance sheet with business ratios, and a cash flow statement to analyze your company’s current and future financial position. This template also comes with built-in formulas, so you can calculate totals as you enter values and customize your statement to fit the needs of your business.
Download Startup Financial Statement Projections Template
For additional templates to help you produce a sound financial plan, visit “ Free Financial Templates for a Business Plan .”
Business Plan Marketing and Sales Templates in Excel
Use these downloadable templates to support and reinforce the marketing and sales objectives in your business plan.
Sales Forecast Template in Excel
This sales forecast template allows you to view the projected sales of your products or services at both individual and combined levels over a 12-month period. You can organize this template by department, product group, customer type, and other helpful categories. The template has built-in formulas to calculate monthly and yearly sales totals. For additional resources to project sales, visit “ Free Sales Forecasting Templates .”
Download Sales Forecast Template
Marketing Budget Plan in Excel
This marketing budget plan template helps you organize and plan your campaign costs for key marketing activities, such as market research, advertising, content marketing , and public relations. Enter the projected quantity and cost under each campaign category; the built-in formulas enable you to calculate projected subtotals automatically. This template also includes a graph that auto-populates as you enter values, so you can see where your marketing dollars are going.
Download Marketing Budget Plan Template
Other Business Plans in Excel
Use these business plan templates to conduct analyses and develop a plan of action that aligns your strategy with your main business objectives.
Business Action Plan Template in Excel
Use this basic action plan template to develop a roadmap for reaching your goals. Add a description of each action item, assign the responsible party, and list the required resources, potential hazards, key dates, and desired outcome. You can use this template to develop an action plan for marketing, sales, program development, and more.
Download Business Action Plan Template
Business Plan Rubric in Excel
Once you complete your business plan, use this rubric template to score each section to ensure you include all the essential information. You can customize this rubric to fit the needs of your organization and provide insight into the areas of your plan where you want to delve more deeply or remove unnecessary details. By following these steps, you can make certain that your final business plan is clear, concise, and thorough.
Download Simple Business Plan Rubric
Competitive Analysis Template in Excel
This template enables you to analyze the competitive landscape and industry for your business. By providing details related to your company and competitors, you can assess and compare all key areas, including the target market, marketing strategies, product or service offerings, distribution channels, and more.
Download Competitive Analysis Template
Excel | Smartsheet
For additional free templates for all aspects of your business, visit “ Free Business Templates for Organizations of All Sizes .”
Turbo-Charge Your Business Plans with Templates from Smartsheet
Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change.
The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.
When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time. Try Smartsheet for free, today.
Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.
Low in stock
Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis Excel Sheets Template. Fully Editable, Instant Download Link
TheBusinessDivaCo
- Digital download
- Digital file type(s): 2 Files
Description
Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis Use in google sheets or excel. Android or Ipad. Just download, and save as your own - then begin editing!
Instant Download
Your files will be available to download once payment is confirmed. Here's how.
Instant download items don’t accept returns, exchanges or cancellations. Please contact the seller about any problems with your order.
Etsy Purchase Protection: Shop confidently on Etsy knowing if something goes wrong with an order, we've got your back for all eligible purchases — see program terms
Meet your sellers
Chelsea Sarah
Owner of TheBusinessDivaCo
2 shop reviews
OMG this Is SO MUCH CUTER in The LIVE! I can not believe how much is included in this - I am OBSESSED!!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!! Glad I didn't pause when I hesitated to be the first review!!! Thank you so so so! I will be back for more!
Response from Chelsea Sarah
Thank you! I am glad you love it!
Purchased item:
The millennial Guide Jan 5, 2023
Thank you so much!
Keilly Rivera Feb 22, 2023
Photos from reviews
More from this shop
Digital Holiday Budget Planner, Excel Actual Versus Budget Planner, Difference Auto Calculated, Fully Editable Customizable Spreadsheet
ad vertisement by TheBusinessDivaCo
Ad vertisement from shop TheBusinessDivaCo
From shop TheBusinessDivaCo
Weekly Idea Planner Template, Set a goal spreadsheet, plan out tasks and due dates, track status with idea planner template, GoogleSheets
Family Budget Planner Automated Template, Automated Excel Finance Plan Download
Editable Daily Schedule, Microsoft Excel Google Sheets, or Printable Daily Schedule PDF A3 A4 A5 USLetter
Printable Digital Weight Loss Worksheet To Track Body lMeasurements Boy/Girl/Men/Women Progress Tracker PDF
40 Free Etsy Listings No Purchase Required, Access Listings https://etsy.me/3SjVuMw
Explore related searches.
excel spreadsheet
google sheets
Business Templates
editable spreadsheet
Explore more related searches.
- Business SWOT spread
- ipad spreadsheet
- Swot analysis sheet
- Editable Swot Templ
- Excel SWOT template
- SWOT Templates
- Editable SWOT
- SWOT Checklist
- Ipad SWOT Check
What’s wrong with this listing?
The first thing you should do is contact the seller directly.
If you’ve already done that, your item hasn’t arrived, or it’s not as described, you can report that to Etsy by opening a case.
Report a problem with an order
We take intellectual property concerns very seriously, but many of these problems can be resolved directly by the parties involved. We suggest contacting the seller directly to respectfully share your concerns.
If you’d like to file an allegation of infringement, you’ll need to follow the process described in our Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy .
Privacy Settings
Etsy uses cookies and similar technologies to give you a better experience, enabling things like:
- basic site functions
- ensuring secure, safe transactions
- secure account login
- remembering account, browser, and regional preferences
- remembering privacy and security settings
- analysing site traffic and usage
- personalized search, content, and recommendations
- helping sellers understand their audience
- showing relevant, targeted ads on and off Etsy
Detailed information can be found in Etsy’s Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy and our Privacy Policy .
Required Cookies & Technologies
Some of the technologies we use are necessary for critical functions like security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and to make the site work correctly for browsing and transactions.
Personalized Advertising
To enable personalized advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. Those partners may have their own information they’ve collected about you. Turning off the personalized advertising setting won’t stop you from seeing Etsy ads or impact Etsy's own personalization technologies, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive.
This type of data sharing may be considered a “sale” of information under California privacy laws. Turning off personalized advertising opts you out of these “sales.” Learn more in our Privacy Policy. , Help Center , and Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy .
Original text
Download this worksheet to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your business. This information can help you outline goals and strategies for your business and marketing efforts.
Once you've completed this worksheet, schedule an appointment with your SCORE mentor to identify ways to improve weaknesses, mitigate the threats, and capitalize on strengths and opportunities.
48 Questions to Ask in Your SWOT Analysis Every business owner should conduct a regular SWOT analysis to assess the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to its competition.
Business Planning & Financial Statements Template Gallery Download SCORE’s templates to help you plan for a new business startup or grow your existing business.
Copyright © 2023 SCORE Association, SCORE.org
Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.
How to Do a SWOT Analysis (With Examples & Free Template!)
If you’ve ever worked in a corporate office environment, you may have come across the term “SWOT analysis.” This has nothing to do with evaluating militarized law enforcement response units, and everything to do with taking a long, hard look at your company.
Conducting a SWOT analysis is a powerful way to evaluate your company or project, whether you’re two people or 500 people. In this article, you’ll learn: what a SWOT analysis is, see some SWOT analysis examples, and learn tips and strategies for conducting a comprehensive SWOT analysis of your own. You’ll also see how you can use the data a SWOT exercise yields to improve your internal processes and workflows, and get a free, editable SWOT analysis template.
The Complete Guide to SWOT Analysis:
Table of contents
What is a SWOT analysis?
Breaking down the swot analysis definition, how to do a swot analysis, swot analysis questions.
- PEST analysis
Benefits of SWOT analysis for small businesses
A full swot analysis example.
- How to act on your results
- Free SWOT analysis template
A SWOT analysis is a technique used to determine and define your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – SWOT.
SWOT analyses can be applied to an entire company or organization, or individual projects within a single department. Most commonly, SWOT analyses are used at the organizational level to determine how closely a business is aligned with its growth trajectories and success benchmarks, but they can also be used to ascertain how well a particular project – such as an online advertising campaign – is performing according to initial projections.
Whatever you choose to call them, SWOT analyses are often presented as a grid-like matrix with four distinct quadrants – one representing each individual element. This presentation offers several benefits, such as identifying which elements are internal versus external, and displaying a wide range of data in an easy-to-read, predominantly visual format.
We know that SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – but what does each of these elements mean? Let’s take a look at each element individually.
The first element of a SWOT analysis is Strengths.
- Things your company does well
- Qualities that separate you from your competitors
- Internal resources such as skilled, knowledgeable staff
- Tangible assets such as intellectual property, capital, proprietary technologies, etc.
As you’ve probably guessed, this element addresses things that your company or project does especially well. This could be something intangible, such as your company’s brand attributes , or something more easily defined such as the unique selling proposition of a particular product line. It could also be your people, your literal human resources: strong leadership, or a great engineering team.
Once you’ve figured out your strengths, it’s time to turn that critical self-awareness on your weaknesses.
- Things your company lacks
- Things your competitors do better than you
- Resource limitations
- Unclear unique selling proposition
What’s holding your business or project back? This element can include organizational challenges like a shortage of skilled people and financial or budgetary limitations .
This element of a SWOT analysis may also include weaknesses in relation to other companies in your industry, such as the lack of a clearly defined USP in a crowded market.
Opportunities
Next up is Opportunities.
- Underserved markets for specific products
- Few competitors in your area
- Emerging needs for your products or services
- Press/media coverage of your company
Can’t keep up with the volume of leads being generated by your marketing team? That’s an opportunity. Is your company developing an innovative new idea that will open up new markets or demographics? That’s another opportunity.
In short, this element of a SWOT analysis covers everything you could do to improve sales , grow as a company , or advance your organization’s mission.
The final element of a SWOT analysis is Threats – everything that poses a risk to either your company itself or its likelihood of success or growth.
- Emerging competitors
- Changing regulatory environment
- Negative press/media coverage
- Changing customer attitudes toward your company
This could include things like emerging competitors, changes in regulatory law, financial risks, and virtually everything else that could potentially jeopardize the future of your company or project.
📗 Free Guide >> The 30 Best Ways to Promote Your Business
SWOT analysis internal and external factors
The four elements above are common to all SWOT analyses. However, many companies further compartmentalize these elements into two distinct subgroups: Internal and External.
Internal factors
Typically, Strengths and Weaknesses are considered internal factors, in that they are the result of organizational decisions under the control of your company or team. A high churn rate , for example, would be categorized as a weakness, but improving a high churn rate is still within your control, making it an internal factor.
External factors
Similarly, emerging competitors would be categorized as a threat in a SWOT analysis, but since there’s very little you can do about this, this makes it an external factor. This is why you may have seen SWOT analyses referred to as Internal-External Analyses or IE matrices.
Image via Bplans
Subcategorizing your four primary elements into Internal and External factors isn’t necessarily critical to the success of your SWOT analysis, but it can be helpful in determining your next move or evaluating the degree of control you have over a given problem or opportunity.
Now that we know what each of the elements of a SWOT analysis means, let’s take a look at how to go about creating and conducting a SWOT analysis.
You can get the full experience in our video below, and this entire post is dedicated to answering that question, but for simplicity’s sake, here’s how to do a SWOT analysis:
- Gather your team together—ideally bring candy.
- Set up your quadrants—on a whiteboard or projector (perhaps using our template).
- Start with strengths—ask the below list of questions.
- Follow suit with weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Organize the information collected into a neat and tidy document.
- Send out to the team with notes.
- Organize a second meeting to come up with action items and owners.
Like feature-benefit matrices , there are several ways to conduct a SWOT analysis. However, regardless of how you choose to structure your analysis, we need to start by asking a series of questions. Here is a breakdown of the questions you should seek to answer when performing your SWOT analysis.
Strengths questions
Let’s take our first element, Strengths, for example. To determine what your strengths are as an organization, you could begin by asking some of the following questions:
- What do your customers love about your company or product(s)?
- What does your company do better than other companies in your industry?
- What are your most positive brand attributes?
- What’s your unique selling proposition?
- What resources do you have at your disposal that your competitors do not?
By answering these questions, you’ll be in great shape to start identifying and listing your organization’s strengths.
Positive brand attributes associated with WordStream, as identified by our customers
Weakness questions
We can use the same principle to determine your company’s weaknesses:
- What do your customers dislike about your company or product(s)?
- What problems or complaints are often mentioned in your negative reviews?
- Why do your customers cancel or churn?
- What could your company do better?
- What are your most negative brand attributes?
- What are the biggest obstacles/challenges in your current sales funnel?
- What resources do your competitors have that you do not?
You may find that determining the strengths and weaknesses of your organization or project is considerably easier or takes less time than figuring out the opportunities and threats facing your company. This is because, as we said earlier, these are internal factors. External factors, on the other hand, may require more effort and rely upon more data, as these are often beyond your immediate sphere of influence.
Opportunities questions
Identifying opportunities and threats may require you to conduct in-depth competitive intelligence research about what your competitors are up to, or the examination of wider economic or business trends that could have an impact on your company. That’s not to say that opportunities and threats cannot be internal, however; you may discover opportunities and threats based solely on the strengths and weaknesses of your company. Some possible questions you could ask to identify potential opportunities might include:
- How can we improve our sales/customer onboarding/customer support processes?
- What kind of messaging resonates with our customers?
- How can we further engage our most vocal brand advocates?
- Are we allocating departmental resources effectively?
- Is there budget, tools, or other resources that we’re not leveraging to full capacity?
- Which advertising channels exceeded our expectations – and why?
Threat questions
When it comes to threats, you could certainly begin by asking a series of questions like those above. However, it’s often quite easy to come up with a list of potential threats facing your business or project without posing questions beforehand. This could include “branded” threats such as emerging or established competitors, broader threats such as changing regulatory environments and market volatility, or even internal threats such as high staff turnover that could threaten or derail current growth.
What is PEST analysis?
While we’re on the topic of internal versus external factors, I wanted to mention a tangential but entirely separate type of analysis closely relevant to SWOT analyses, known as a PEST analysis.
Earlier, I mentioned that external factors such as changing regulatory policies and market volatility could be considered threats in a standard SWOT analysis. However, despite their importance, challenges like this are often highly nuanced and driven by dozens or hundreds of individual factors. This can place them beyond the scope or intent of a typical SWOT analysis. This is why many companies also conduct PEST analyses.
This type of analysis is not what an exterminator does upon arriving at a roach-infested tenement. Rather, a PEST analysis functions very similarly to a SWOT analysis, only they’re concerned with four external factors:
- Sociocultural
- Technological
Pros of PEST analysis
One of the main reasons it’s worth looking at PEST analyses is because many of the factors that could end up in a PEST matrix could also be relevant to the Opportunities and Threats in our SWOT analysis. The kind of political and economic turmoil we’ve seen in the United States during the past year, for example, could very well pose legitimate and serious threats to many businesses (as well as some opportunities), but these kinds of obstacles tend to be much more complicated than the opportunities and threats you’d see in most SWOT analyses, given their broader scale and often-complex underlying factors.
Image via Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue/Hofstra University
Cons of PEST analysis
Obstacles identified in a typical PEST analysis also tend to be on much longer timeframes – it’s a lot easier and quicker to try and overcome internal challenges like high staff turnover than it is to wait and see if the economy picks up (or if the bubble will burst again). That’s why many larger companies conduct both SWOT and PEST analyses simultaneously – the SWOT analysis provides them with more immediate, potentially actionable roadmaps, whereas PEST analyses can be highly valuable when it comes to formulating longer-term plans and business strategies.
If you’re a marketer or small-business owner, you might be wondering if SWOT analyses are practical or even feasible for smaller companies and organizations. Although there is definitely a resource overhead involved in the creation of a SWOT analysis, there are many benefits in doing so, even for the smallest of companies.
- Get a bird’s eye view: For one, conducting a comprehensive SWOT analysis provides a unique opportunity to gain greater insight into how your business operates. It’s all too easy to get lost in the weeds of the day-to-day workings of your company, and conducting a SWOT analysis allows you to take a broader, bird’s eye view of your business and the position it occupies in your industry.
- Improve specific campaigns and projects. Another benefit of SWOT analyses is that this technique can be applied to a wide range of scenarios, not just as an overview of your business. You could use SWOT analyses to evaluate the potential strengths and weaknesses of a forthcoming advertising campaign, a planned content project, or even whether your company should be represented at a trade show or industry event.
Here’s an example of a project SWOT analysis:
Image source
- Develop tangible roadmaps. Obviously, it almost goes without saying that conducting a SWOT analysis allows you to identify what your company does well, where it could improve, and the opportunities and threats facing your business. However, conducting a SWOT analysis provides you with the opportunity to not only identify these factors, but also develop and implement tangible roadmaps and timelines for potential solutions. This can be beneficial in the creation of budgetary plans, identifying hiring needs and other mid- to long-term strategic planning.
So, now we know what each element of a SWOT analysis is concerned with and the kinds of exploratory questions we can ask to get the ball rolling, it’s time to actually get to work and create your SWOT analysis.
To illustrate how it works, we’ll create our own SWOT analysis example: a family-owned restaurant, with a single location, operating in an urban area.
Here’s the SWOT analysis example based on our fictional restaurant:
As you can see, this matrix format allows you to quickly and easily identify the various elements you’ve included in your analysis.
Strengths examples
- Excellent, well-trafficked location
- Good reputation in local community
- Seasonal menu, locally sourced.
Weakness examples
- Higher costs than comparable chain restaurants
- Single location means limited reach
- Modest advertising budget
- Not currently using food delivery apps/technology
Opportunity examples
- Growing interest in/support for locally sourced ingredients
- Seasonal menu keeps things fresh and interesting
- Potential growth via food delivery apps/technology
Threat examples
- Intensifying competition from established chain restaurants
- Uncertain economic environment
- Rising cost of ingredients
SWOT analysis example: Acting on your results
So, you’ve finally got your hands on a completed SWOT matrix. You’ve identified internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. You’ve begun to see your company in a whole new light.
Ideally, there are two stages of action you should take upon completing a SWOT analysis. First, you should attempt to match your strengths with your opportunities . Next, you should try to convert weaknesses into strengths . Let’s take a look how this works.
1. Harness your strengths
One of the best things about the strengths you identified in your SWOT analysis is that you’re already doing them.
In our example above, the restaurant’s location, reputation, and seasonal menu are all strengths. This tells the fictitious company that it should continue to experiment with its popular seasonal menu. It also tells the company it should continue to develop and nurture the strong relationships with its regular customers that have strengthened the restaurant’s reputation in the community.
Essentially, acting upon your business’ strengths consists of “do more of what you’re already good at.”
2. Shore up your weaknesses
Acting on the weaknesses you identified in your SWOT analysis is a little trickier, not least because you have to be honest enough with yourself about your weaknesses in the first place.
Going back to our example, some of these weaknesses are very challenging to act upon. Going up against the considerable purchasing power of rival chain restaurants can be very difficult for smaller, family owned businesses. The restaurant is also struggling with its limited reach, the restrictions of a modest advertising budget, and is also failing to leverage the potential to increase sales by allowing customers to order food online through delivery apps like Foodler or GrubHub.
However, that’s not to say all hope is lost. It might be harder for our example business to compete with a chain, but there are plenty of other ways small companies can be more competitive – such as by developing strong, meaningful relationships with customers, which was not only one of the company’s strengths, but also something chain restaurants simply cannot offer.
3. Seize opportunities
The Opportunities section of your SWOT analysis is by far the most actionable, and that’s by design. By identifying opportunities by evaluating your organization’s strengths, you should have a ready-made list of targets to aim for.
In the example above, increasing consumer appetites for ethically produced, locally grown ingredients is a major opportunity. However, our restaurateurs cannot rest on their laurels – there’s still work to be done. In this example, this may involve investing in technical expertise to take advantage of the opportunities presented by food delivery apps, or sourcing locally grown produce more aggressively in an attempt to reduce costs.
It’s also important to avoid hubris or complacency in your opportunities. Even if you have an iron-clad advantage over every other business in your industry, failing to devote sufficient time, money, or personnel resources in maintaining that advantage may result in you missing out on these opportunities over time.
Every business’ opportunities will differ, but it’s vital that you create a clearly defined roadmap for capitalizing upon the opportunities you’ve identified, whether they be internal or external.
4. Mitigate threats
Anticipating and mitigating the threats identified in your SWOT analysis may be the most difficult challenge you’ll face in this scenario, primarily because threats are typically external factors; there’s only so much you can do to mitigate the potential damage of factors beyond your control.
Every threat, and the appropriate reaction to that threat, is different. Regardless of the specific threats you’ve identified in your SWOT analysis, responding to and monitoring those threats should be among your very top priorities, irrespective of the degree of control you have over those threats.
In the example above, all three threats are particularly challenging. To compete with the prices of its chain competitors, our restaurateurs may be forced to either compromise on their values to secure cheaper ingredients, or willingly cut into their profit margins to remain competitive. Similarly, economic uncertainty is virtually impossible to fully mitigate, making it a persistent threat to the stability of our example restaurant business.
In some SWOT analyses, there may be some overlap between your opportunities and threats. For example, in the analysis above, the popularity of locally sourced ingredients was identified as an opportunity, and heightened competition was identified as a threat. In this example, highlighting the restaurant’s relationships with local farmers – further reinforcing the restaurant’s commitment to the local community and regional economy – may be an effective way for our restaurateurs to overcome the threat posed by the increasingly desperate chain restaurants vying for their customers.
When compiling the results of your SWOT analysis, be sure to look for areas of crossover like this and see if it’s possible to seize an opportunity and reduce a threat at the same time.
Free SWOT Analysis template
Ready to put it all into practice for your own business? Here’s our free, editable, SWOT analysis template .
It’s a Google Sheet so you can add and remove rows, edit and answer the questions, paste into a slide deck, and more.
View full-size image | Open Google Sheet
We’ve also thrown a blank one in there too:
Meet The Author
Originally from the U.K., Dan Shewan is a journalist and web content specialist who now lives and writes in New England. Dan’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications in print and online, including The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Pacific Standard magazine, The Independent, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and many other outlets.
See other posts by Dan Shewan
More Articles Like This
50+ Creative February Marketing Ideas (Beyond Valentine's Day!)
There's a National Public Sleeping Day in February. Who knew?
These 14 Digital Marketing Trends Will Have the Biggest Influence in 2023
Your most pressing questions about consumers and brands in 2023, with expert input!
How to Generate Leads: 41 Strategies That Work (Paid & Free!)
From lead magnets to landing pages to local tactics, there is something in here for every business.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter!
Related articles.
The 13 Best Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses in 2023
How to Do a SWOT Analysis for Better Strategic Planning
This article is part of our “ Business Planning Guide “ —a curated list of our articles that will help you with the planning process!
Conducting a SWOT analysis of your business is a lot more fun than it sounds. It won’t take much time, and doing it forces you to think about your business in a whole new way.
The point of a SWOT analysis is to help you develop a strong business strategy by making sure you’ve considered all of your business’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats it faces in the marketplace.
What is a SWOT analysis?
S.W.O.T. is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is an organized list of your business’s greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company (think: reputation, patents, location). You can change them over time but not without some work. Opportunities and threats are external (think: suppliers, competitors, prices)—they are out there in the market, happening whether you like it or not. You can’t change them.
Existing businesses can use a SWOT analysis, at any time, to assess a changing environment and respond proactively. In fact, I recommend conducting a strategy review meeting at least once a year that begins with a SWOT analysis.
New businesses should use a SWOT analysis as a part of their planning process. There is no “one size fits all” plan for your business, and thinking about your new business in terms of its unique “SWOTs” will put you on the right track right away, and save you from a lot of headaches later on.
Looking to get started right away? Download our free SWOT Analysis template.
In this article, I will cover the following:
How to conduct a swot analysis, questions to ask during a swot analysis.
- Example of a SWOT analysis
- TOWS analysis: Developing strategies for your SWOT analysis
To get the most complete, objective results, a SWOT analysis is best conducted by a group of people with different perspectives and stakes in your company. Management, sales, customer service, and even customers can all contribute valid insight. Moreover, the SWOT analysis process is an opportunity to bring your team together and encourage their participation in and adherence to your company’s resulting strategy.
A SWOT analysis is typically conducted using a four-square SWOT analysis template, but you could also just make lists for each category. Use the method that makes it easiest for you to organize and understand the results.
I recommend holding a brainstorming session to identify the factors in each of the four categories. Alternatively, you could ask team members to individually complete our free SWOT analysis template, and then meet to discuss and compile the results. As you work through each category, don’t be too concerned about elaborating at first; bullet points may be the best way to begin. Just capture the factors you believe are relevant in each of the four areas.
Once you are finished brainstorming, create a final, prioritized version of your SWOT analysis, listing the factors in each category in order of highest priority at the top to lowest priority at the bottom.
I’ve compiled some questions below to help you develop each section of your SWOT analysis. There are certainly other questions you could ask; these are just meant to get you started.
Strengths (internal, positive factors)
Strengths describe the positive attributes, tangible and intangible, internal to your organization. They are within your control.
- What do you do well?
- Positive attributes of people , such as knowledge, background, education, credentials, network, reputation, or skills.
- Tangible assets of the company , such as capital, credit, existing customers or distribution channels, patents, or technology.
- What advantages do you have over your competition?
- Do you have strong research and development capabilities? Manufacturing facilities?
- What other positive aspects, internal to your business, add value or offer you a competitive advantage?
Weaknesses (internal, negative factors)
Weaknesses are aspects of your business that detract from the value you offer or place you at a competitive disadvantage. You need to enhance these areas in order to compete with your best competitor.
- What factors that are within your control detract from your ability to obtain or maintain a competitive edge?
- What areas need improvement to accomplish your objectives or compete with your strongest competitor?
- What does your business lack (for example, expertise or access to skills or technology)?
- Does your business have limited resources?
- Is your business in a poor location?
Opportunities (external, positive factors)
Opportunities are external attractive factors that represent reasons your business is likely to prosper.
- What opportunities exist in your market or the environment that you can benefit from?
- Is the perception of your business positive?
- Has there been recent market growth or have there been other changes in the market the create an opportunity?
- Is the opportunity ongoing, or is there just a window for it? In other words, how critical is your timing?
Threats (external, negative factors)
Threats include external factors beyond your control that could place your strategy, or the business itself, at risk. You have no control over these, but you may benefit by having contingency plans to address them if they should occur.
- Who are your existing or potential competitors?
- What factors beyond your control could place your business at risk?
- Are there challenges created by an unfavorable trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits?
- What situations might threaten your marketing efforts?
- Has there been a significant change in supplier prices or the availability of raw materials?
- What about shifts in consumer behavior, the economy, or government regulations that could reduce your sales?
- Has a new product or technology been introduced that makes your products, equipment, or services obsolete?
Examples of a SWOT analysis
For illustration, here’s a brief SWOT example from a hypothetical, medium-sized computer store in the United States:
See our SWOT analysis examples article for in-depth examples of SWOT analyses for several different industries and business types or download our free SWOT analysis template .
TOWS analysis: Developing strategies from your SWOT analysis
Once you have identified and prioritized your SWOT results, you can use them to develop short-term and long-term strategies for your business. After all, the true value of this exercise is in using the results to maximize the positive influences on your business and minimize the negative ones.
But how do you turn your SWOT results into strategies? One way to do this is to consider how your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats overlap with each other. This is sometimes called a TOWS analysis.
For example, look at the strengths you identified, and then come up with ways to use those strengths to maximize the opportunities (these are strength-opportunity strategies). Then, look at how those same strengths can be used to minimize the threats you identified (these are strength-threats strategies).
Continuing this process, use the opportunities you identified to develop strategies that will minimize the weaknesses (weakness-opportunity strategies) or avoid the threats (weakness-threats strategies).
The following table might help you organize the strategies in each area:
Once you’ve developed strategies and included them in your strategic plan, be sure to schedule regular review meetings. Use these meetings to talk about why the results of your strategies are different from what you’d planned (because they always will be) and decide what your team will do going forward.
Looking for more?
See our SWOT analysis examples article for in-depth examples of SWOT analyses for several different industries, or download our free SWOT analysis template .
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry .
Starting or Growing a Business? Check out these Offerings.
Business Plan Writers
Investor-Ready Business Plans Written In No Time
100% Free Quote
One-Page Business Pitch
Write A Winning Business Pitch In Just 60 Minutes
Start for $20/mo
Full Business Plan in Half the Time— and Double the Impact
Save 25% Annually
Business Tools
Exclusive Offers on Must-Haves for New and Growing Businesses
$100+ in savings
Plan, fund, and grow.
Easily write a business plan, secure funding, and gain insights.
Achieve your business funding goals with a proven plan format.
Founding Day Offers are On - Enjoy 22.2% Off on All Our Courses!
Total with VAT: {{CartWithDetails.cartMaster.total_after_vat}} {{currency}}
Your cart is empty.
SWOT Analysis vs. PEST Analysis - Decide Which is Right For Your Business
Written By : Bakkah
2019-10-20 00:00:00
Table of Content
What is SWOT analysis and PEST analysis?
What is a swot analysis, what are the strengths in swot analysis, what are the weaknesses in swot analysis, what are the opportunities in swot analysis, what are the threats in swot analysis, how to do a swot analysis, what is pest analysis, what is political in pest analysis, what is economic in pest analysis, what is social in pest analysis , what is technological in pest analysis , pest analysis checklist, swot analysis versus pest analysis – which is better, best resources to learn about business:, popular articles.
Essential Soft Skills In The Workplace - Top Soft Skills For A Job
Top market analysis tools and steps with free downloadable templates!
2023 Best Project Management Tools - Top Tools For Agile Project Management
SWOT analysis and PEST analysis are simple business tools that can help you develop targeted marketing strategies to grow your business. Although both have similar objectives, SWOT analysis, and PEST analysis have fundamental differences that provide a different approach to improving your marketing strategy. The article below discusses PEST analysis and SWOT analysis and what they bring to the business table.
The Term SWOT is an abbreviation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a tool that helps businesses create a marketing strategy that answers present and future business opportunities.
There are four basic elements in a SWOT analysis. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal to the organization. Examples of strength include the organization's ability to produce products that are cheaper compared to its competitors or a weakness caused by improperly trained employees.
Opportunities and Threats are elements that are not directly under control by the organization. A new market for your product, for example, can provide you with opportunities. Threats, on the other hand, include a competitor selling similar products at a lower price.
A SWOT analysis helps identify your organization’s position and competitiveness. It provides you the opportunity to create a business strategy based on facts and research.
The key to creating a successful and effective SWOT analysis is to ask the right questions. More detailed questions translate to better data.
Strengths in SWOT Analysis are factors that are innate in your organization. These are things within your organization’s control and can be tapped to improve your strategy.
- What strategies worked best in the past?
- What are your strengths based on competitor feedback?
- What do customers like best about your brand?
- What is your advantage in terms of company assets (finances, workforce, management, production capacity)?
- What business relationships help you compete in the market?
Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis are factors that can be found internally or within your organization and can affect your competitiveness.
- What do competitors do better (lower prices, better product features)?
- What do customers dislike about your products?
- Do you require additional equipment?
- Are your employees and management adequately trained?
- What is your market penetration? Are you reaching your target market?
Opportunities in SWOT Analysis are market openings, and outside factors can be taken advantage of to provide additional opportunities for growth.
- What are the possible areas where you can apply your strengths?
- Is there a shift in customer attitudes and needs?
- Are there any new changes in business practices that your organization can take advantage of?
- Are you maximizing your market exposure, any new markets?
- Can you make production more efficient?
- Is your competitor suffering from negative customer sentiment, and can you attract these customers to your business?
Threats in SWOT Analysis are external factors that can hurt your business. Competitively priced products, or upcoming products that can affect your sales numbers.
- Is your product able to meet customer demands?
- Are there any new products in the market that is in direct competition with your products?
- Are your competitor’s products cheaper and better?
- Is there a customer shift from your products or services to your competitors?
- Are your competitors developing newer and better products?
- Is your business financially viable or suffering from cash flow problems?
- Are your employees satisfied and performing to the best of their ability?
A SWOT analysis is a business tool that is used for documenting an organization's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This can be a handy tool for helping businesses achieve short-term and long-term goals.
Step1: Determine the Objective
To maximize the benefits of your SWOT analysis, you should first determine a clear goal or objective. Ask what the purpose of the SWOT analysis is. Would this be used for introducing a new product or improve your service?
Step2: Make initial research on your business and market
Performing initial research on your main competitors and the current market will help you create a more comprehensive and targeted SWOT analysis. You could ask your personnel or business partners for input on how to go about the research.
Step3: Determine your Strengths
The first element in a SWOT analysis is Strengths. In this step, you aim to identify your advantages over the competition. This can include your workforce, financial resources, the number of products and services you provide, the price of products, and your production capacity.
Step4: Identifying your Weaknesses
Gauge your weaknesses by comparing your products, and services with those of your competitors. To get a more detailed look at your weaknesses, try checking your sales numbers over the years and where you are experiencing a shortfall. Declining sales numbers, for example, can be traced to poor production practices that can lead to more expensive products.
Step5: Identifying Areas of Opportunities and Growth
This should not be confused with your internal strengths. These are opportunities that are outside your control but provide you with an opening for growth. A previously untapped market for your products can give you an instant way of boosting your sales. Consumers searching for a different type of product that is currently not in your inventory should be an opportunity worth exploring. New manufacturing processes that decrease production time while improving efficiency can help you save on production costs.
Step6: Determining Possible Threats to Your Business
Identify all possible factors that can negatively influence your business. This can include inflation, new products, and unemployment.
Step7: Determining Priorities
After determining the factors contained in the four elements of your SWOT analysis, it is now time to determine priorities. Although all of these are important, prioritizing which you should focus your energies first on those that can get you the best and quickest results.
PEST analysis is a tool used for determining how different factors affect your business. PEST is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological elements. PEST analysis is a management tool that assesses all major external factors that can influence a business, and its current and future operations. Like its SWOT analysis counterpart, PEST analysis is often used to increase competitiveness in the market.
A variation of the popular PEST Analysis format is currently being employed in the U.K. It now includes two additional elements, Legal and Environment. The PESTLE analysis aims to give a more comprehensive picture of all external factors affecting a business.
Political in PEST Analysis refers to government regulations or legal elements that influence business operations. It includes government policies that can have an influence on industries and the economy in general. Factors include political stability issues, peace and order, employment laws, trade policies, and tax guidelines.
Economic in PEST Analysis is a country's economic indicators and overall performance. Factors include interest rates, inflation, unemployment, and current consumer confidence. Inflation for example can affect the buying powers of consumers, driving prices higher, which can result in lower sales numbers.
Higher interest rates could also affect business operations making it more expensive to borrow additional capital.
Social in PEST Analysis is the social factors that focus on the socioeconomic elements that influence the market. This includes education, lifestyle, culture, demographics, and attitude. By understanding these factors, the business can create marketing strategies that are customer-centered.
An example of this includes an increase in sales during the holidays. By following this, businesses can increase product output in anticipation of customer demands during this period.
Technological in PEST Analysis is no denying the critical role technology plays in everyday business operations. Automation can increase production and lower production costs. Research into new technology enables the creation of better products.
PEST analysis is used for making marketing and business strategies that address development, decision making, and competitive planning. The first thing to consider when creating a PEST analysis is to define the subject of the research clearly, this include:
- A business studying its market
- A product launching
- Determining brand perception
- Acquisition
- Exploring a partnership
Below is a sample PEST checklist that serves as a guide for making current and future changes in your marketing strategy. You can create a PEST analysis by identifying the different factors in the four PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) sections.
Political PEST Analysis Checklist
- Government legislation on the home market
- Ecological/environmental policies
- National and international legislation on business
- Regulatory agencies and policies
- Trade agreements
- Lobby groups
- Government grants and initiative
- Peace situation/ conflicts
- Forward-looking economic policies
Economic PEST Analysis Checklist
- Current economic situation
- Economic trends (national/international)
- Business taxes
- Specific taxes on products and services
- Market cycles
- Market access (transportation, road network, ports)
- Currency exchange rates
- Interest rates
Social PEST Analysis Checklist
- Demographics
- General customer attitudes and sentiment
- Popular culture
- Fashion trends
- Religious factors
- Ethical issues
Technological PEST Analysis Checklist
- Latest developments
- Manufacturing process
- Intellectual property/license
- Product research
The first thing we must understand is that this is not a competition. Rather than comparing SWOT Analysis and PEST Analysis, we should understand their capabilities and limitations. This way, we could apply the appropriate strategy according to our needs. Both planning methods are designed to give deeper insight into our business and its processes. It tries to answer what can be done or how you could perform better.
One major shortcoming using PEST analysis is that it does not take into consideration internal factors. It considers all the different factors that can affect your project or business. PEST analysis's biggest strength is also its greatest weakness. A PEST analysis is designed to be simple. It is outward-looking but does not consider internal factors, which can have a more significant effect on the health of the business.
SWOT analysis offers a more comprehensive study of both internal and external factors affecting your business. However, it does fall short in terms of researching all positive and negative external factors. What is a better process? The answer is both have their shortcomings. Both SWOT analysis and PEST analysis should be employed to give your business better opportunities to grow.
The best strategy is first to conduct a comprehensive PEST analysis. It is used to determine all external factors. A SWOT analysis is then conducted to check for all internal factors that can affect your performance. By combining these two strategies, you can get a more comprehensive picture of the different factors that can influence your current and future marketing strategies.
Here are the best resources to assess you in your business and make it more professional:
- Project Management Courses
- Certified HR Courses
- Certified Business Analysis Courses
- Certified IT Courses
- Supply Chain Management Courses
- Quality Management Courses
- AgileSHIFT® Courses
- CCMP™ - Certified Change Management Professional
Bakkah Learning Team.
Related Courses
Our learning programs are delivered through a tested and professionally designed methodology.
Live Online
AgileSHIFT®
Exam is included
Your experience on this site will be improved by allowing cookies.
Added to Cart
{{ convertjson(lastcartitem.course.title) }}, features with this course, total with vat, {{ parsefloat(totalfeatures(lastcartitem)) }} {{currency}}.
SWOT Analysis Template—Free Download
This form will load shortly, thanks for your patience.
Why use a SWOT analysis template?
Ready to get the swot analysis template fill out the form to get started >>>, how to do a swot analysis, swot analysis examples, download our free swot template and get started today.
Need a faster way to write your business plan? LivePlan is the #1 planning tool for over 1 million businesses.
Your download should begin immediately
If your download doesn't begin after 5 seconds, please click here .
View our entire gallery of free downloads
Tweet about it
I just downloaded a free SWOT analysis template from Bplans.com!#smb #startup
Recommended Articles
Recommended Download
You might also enjoy:
The Small Business Toolkit
Access a free list of must–have resources for new and growing businesses in any industry.
Plan, fund, and grow.
Easily write a business plan, secure funding, and gain insights.
Achieve your business funding goals with a proven plan format.
Home » Business Plans
How to Write a SWOT Analysis Report for Business Plan [Sample Template]
Writing a SWOT analysis is the first step to writing a business plan. Without any doubt, the number one secret of a successful business is planning, and more specifically writing your own business plan. But before you begin planning, you should make sure that you understand your business, your competitive environment and what it is going to take to be successful.
In his book “ The Art of War ”, an ancient general known as Sun Su said that if you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles, if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat and if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
With the above analogy, he created a sort of SWOT analysis that will allow you to see yourself and your enemy or competitors more clearly. A lot of small business owners only see just a small part of their competitive environment.
They make decisions at a snap based on what seems to them to be the biggest issue or problem in front of them or they buy equipment thinking that they know their market and then end up not being able to pay for it. In addition, almost every lender or investor will want to make sure that they see the whole picture before they will be willing to part with their money. Before you make any decision you should be sure that you see everything.
What is SWOT Analysis?
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and just like its name implies, it tends to review those four aforementioned parameters. SWOT analysis provides an avenue by which the management team identifies the internal and external factors that will affect how the company performs and ultimately its future.
A businesses strengths and weaknesses constitute its internal factors while the opportunities and threats faced by the business makes up its external or environmental factors.
SWOT analysis is done as part of the overall corporate planning process in which financial and operational goals are set for the upcoming year and strategies are created to accomplish these goals. It is also a very important and crucial ingredient in a business plan.
1. Strengths
Strengths refer to those things that a company does that provides it with <a class="wpil_keyword_link" title="competitive advantage" competitive advantage . It is those things that a company can do which no other company does better than them. It includes what the company is known for.
For instance, for a company like Walmart, one of its main strengths is the fact that they are able to maintain very low cost. This allows them to price their products much lower than a lot of their competitors can because they have the ability to keep their costs low.
Positive brand recognition is also another very good example of strength . Some companies are well known. When you see their image and logo, it evokes positive emotions in you about that brand in particular. These types of companies just have to put their logo on a particular brand and people will buy it just because they have strong brand recognition. They are viewed positively because they are known for the quality they possess.
Yet another example is a skilled work force . This is a very significant strength in the sense that human resources is to a large part the greatest asset that most companies can have. Good employees are hard to come by and employers that can retain their workers and continually train them use it as a competitive advantage. A good example of a company that has this is Costco. They have a well-known reputation of having longer tenure track than most other industries in the same area.
Normally in the retail industry, if you want to maintain low prices , you will have to maintain lower costs which usually means that you will not pay your staff very significantly. Costco on the other hand has done something that is quite different from the norm in that industry.
They pay high wages for the industry, they also offer benefits for part time employees and they also have a lot of other attractive perks that other companies in the line do not offer. This provides them with a benefit of having workers that stay there longer. If workers stay in a particular work for a longer period, they will ultimately get better at what they do.
An employee who has stayed in a business for 3 to 5 years will definitely be better at the job than an employee who has stayed for less than a year in a particular work. This also allows the management to save more money that would have been used to hire and train new staff. Other strengths include access to financial resources, intellectual property, cost advantage et al.
2. Weaknesses
Weaknesses are the things that a company does that are not necessarily positive and could potentially be a liability for them. Sometimes when a factor is not a strength, it may tend to be a weakness. Poor customer service constitutes a significant weakness for a company because it may affect the rate at which future customers will go to that company to purchase their products or services especially if they have heard about someone having a bad experience with them in the past.
Expiring intellectual properties, patents, trademarks and copy rights are also weaknesses . Rising cost is also a major weakness because it will reduce the profit margin of a company. Having an unskilled workforce also provides a weakness because you will have to commit multiple resources to training.
And of course, lack of financial resources can be a major weakness for a company. Just because something is a weakness for a company does not mean that it has to keep being that way. The company can devote more time and resources to reverse this negative trend.
3. Opportunities and Threats
Opportunities and threats are considered to be external to a company because the company cannot necessarily affect or change these elements. These things just happen and it is up to the company to try to recognize an opportunity. If they are able to recognize an opportunity, that can serve as a potential avenue for growth and profitability.
If an opportunity is not ceased, it can quickly turn into a threat. One of the most notable opportunities that exist in recent times is new technology.
Technology has undergone some rapid changes in the past decade or so and this has provided a lot of opportunities for businesses. For example, Amazon was able to look into the option of digital books and digital market and were the first to come up with an e-book reader.
At that time, it was almost impossible to imagine that digital books can even become popular but Amazon was able to key into the opportunity that technology provided and today is the number one in digital books.
Technology could also pose a threat too . Borders is an example of a company that was negatively affected by technology after it failed to foresee the impact that it would have on the industry and as a result they are nonexistent today. The same thing happened when Apple came out with iTunes.
People could now purchase digital rights to songs and not necessarily a physical CD and as such a lot of businesses that specialize in CDs could no longer continue to operate. Technology was an opportunity at one point for them but due to the fact that they did not key into it, it became a threat. Other opportunities include relaxing government regulations, elimination of international barriers, changing consumer preference et al.
Threats are changes in the external environment that have the ability to impact the company . Opportunities and threats are very closely interlinked because opportunities that are not seized can tend to escalate into a threat. Examples of threats are emergence of new competitors into a market, pending government regulations, increased trade barriers, pending lawsuits, new technology et al.
Writing a SWOT Analysis Report for a Business Plan – A Sample Template
To write a SWOT analysis for your business plan you would have to brainstorm and find out what constitutes your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For best results, you should conduct a SWOT analysis from the perspective of management, sales, customer care and even the customers. Typically, a SWOT analysis for a business plan is conducted using a foursquare SWOT analysis template but alternatively, you can just make a list of each of the factors you intend to consider.
Once you are done with your brainstorm session, you should create a final version of your SWOT analysis in an order of priority. You should list each category with the elements that are of most priority at the top, and the elements with the least priority should be at the bottom.
For the purpose of illustration, here is a brief SWOT analysis for a hypothetical dog grooming business in the united states of America.
- Have many return customers
- Do get walk-in business
- Mobile grooming van has eye catching logo and gives exposure when performing on-site services
- Customers are satisfied with our level of service
- High overhead cost
- Don’t have a marketing plan
- Don’t have a structured marketing budget
Opportunities
- Increasing popularity of dogs in America
- Increasing use of social media
- Local annual pet fair
- Competition from other dog grooming businesses in town
- Expenses in running media ads
Uses of SWOT Analysis Report
- For strategic planning and decision making: a SWOT analysis is a very important tool for making strategic plans and decisions. It allows the business owner to consider every aspect of the business and also to make informed decisions from the finding he makes.
- Building on strengths: a SWOT analysis will help you to identify the areas in which you are doing well in your business. By identifying these areas, you can make sure that you maintain them so as not to lose that competitive advantage.
- Minimizing weaknesses: conducting a SWOT analysis will help you to identify the characteristics that put your business in a competitive disadvantage. By identifying these areas, you will then be able to easily minimize their impact on your business and thus improve what you already have on ground.
- Seizing opportunities: a SWOT analysis can open your eyes to opportunities that exist around you which your business can take advantage of and turn them into strengths. An opportunity that exists but is not seized by a business can prove to be disastrous in the future.
- Counteracting the effects of threats: with the use of a comprehensive SWOT analysis, a business should be able to identify threats and also proffer ways of nullifying their effects.
More on Business Plans
- Demo Videos
- Interactive Product Tours
- Request Demo
What is SWOT Analysis?
SWOT analysis is a process where the management team identifies the internal and external factors that will affect the company's future performance. It helps us to identify of what is happening internally and externally, so that you can plan and manage your business in the most effective and efficient manner.
When to Use SWOT Analysis?
A SWOT involves identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and opportunities and threats present in the market that it operates in. It can be used for studying various situation of a business:
- Organization can perform SWOT analysis for each of its products, services, and markets when deciding on the best way to achieve future growth.
- At the start of a project, it's important to get a handle on the current situation. Appreciating your strengths, studying opportunities, pinpointing weaknesses and identifying threats is a prudent way to kick off the start-ups in the right direction.
Basic Concepts of SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis will help you understand the company's position which will encourages ideas and decision-making on how to build on strengths, exploit opportunities, minimize weaknesses and protect against threats. Below are four benefits of using a SWOT analysis for your business:
- Identify Core Competencies - It provides a clear view of your core competencies, and allows you to build on them to meet your business objectives
- Identify Weaknesses - Recognizing your company's weaknesses is one of the first steps to improving your business. It reveals your weaknesses and provides a chance to reverse them
- Explore Opportunities - It helps your to explore the opportunities that lies ahead. Using this you can draft your strategic growth plans based on your strengths and weaknesses
- Recognize Potential Treats - It helps you analyze possible threats to your business, and you can subsequently make necessary changes to the business policies and necessary actions. Additionally, it facilitates making supplementary or alternative plans, contingency plans, and so on
SWOT Question and Checklist
We can conduct the SWOT analysis by answering the group of similar questions (depending on the context or nature of the problems you would like to solve) for each of the four components:
- Identify skills and capabilities that you have.
- What can you do particularly well, relative to rivals?
- What do analysts consider to be your strengths?
- What resources do you have?
- Is your brand or reputation strong?
- What do rivals do better than you?
- What do you do poorly?
- What generates the most customer dissatisfaction and complaints?
- What generates the most employee dissatisfaction and complaints?
- What processes and activities can you improve?
Opportunities
- Where can you apply your strengths?
- How are your customers and their needs changing?
- How is technology changing your business?
- Are there new markets for your strengths? (e.g. foreign)
- Are there new ways of producing your products?
- Are your rivals' customers dissatisfied?
- Are customers able to meet their needs with alternative products?
- Are customers needs changing away from your product?
- What are your competitors developing?
- Are your rivals improving their product offerings or prices?
- Is new technology making your product obsolete?
- Is your cash-flow and debt position healthy?
- Are your employees satisfied?
- Is turnover high?
- Is new competition coming?
- Are sales growing slower than the industry average?
SWOT Template
You can develop a list of prioritized Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats based on some questions, analysis, interviews research of the current state and external operating environment.
How to Conduct SWOT Analysis?
As we mentioned before, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a way of summarizing the current state of a company and helping to devise a plan for the future. Regardless of whether you or your team are future planning for specific products, work, personal or any other area, the SWOT analysis process can be conducted with the following steps:
Step 1 - List all strengths that exist now. Then in turn, list all weaknesses that exist now.
Step 2 - List all opportunities that exist in the future. Opportunities are potential future strengths . Then in turn, list all threats that exist in the future. Threats are potential future weaknesses .
Step 3 - Plan of action - Review your SWOT matrix with a view to creating an action plan to address each of the four areas.
- Strengths need to be maintained, built upon or leveraged.
- Weaknesses need to be remedied or stopped.
- Opportunities need to be prioritized and optimized.
- Threats need to be countered or minimized.
SWOT Analysis Example 1 - Internet Small Business Startup
Action plan.
As you use the SWOT Analysis for planning, you align the positive elements to help take advantage of opportunities and identify the gaps in the negative elements that must be improved or managed. Driving to implications from the SWOT requires us to take a strategic leap, looking at the connections across the categories (e.g. where does a strength help us mitigate a threat), as well as looking holistically across for trends.
- Strength - Maintain low overhead by changing pay structure to balance basic pay with performance base bonuses
- Weakness - Study, research and implement project planning system and follow it
- Opportunity - Test new market with one existing product first
- Threats - include business partner in performance based commission scheme
SWOT Analysis Example 2 - Starbucks *
SWOT Analysis Example 3 - Nike *
*Disclaimer: This case study has been compiled from information freely available from public sources. It is intended to be used as an example for illustration purposes only
Related Links
- Try SWOT Analysis now
- SWOT and other strategic analysis tools
* SWOT Analysis is powered by Visual Paradigm's web technology. You can create it in both Visual Paradigm Desktop and Visual Paradigm Online .
Turn every software project into a successful one.
We use cookies to offer you a better experience. By visiting our website, you agree to the use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy .
© 2022 by Visual Paradigm. All rights reserved.
- Privacy statement
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis Assign owners and completion dates to the key activities needed to be performed when preparing a formal business plan. This accessible checklist template follows the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Thread (SWOT) analysis framework. Excel Download Open in browser Share More templates like this
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.
Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis Assign owners and completion dates to the key activities needed to be performed when preparing a formal business plan. This accessible checklist template follows the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Thread (SWOT) analysis framework. Excel Download Open in browser Share More templates like this
Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis. Assign owners and completion dates to the key activities needed to be performed when preparing a formal business plan. This accessible checklist template follows the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Thread (SWOT) analysis framework.
The three steps to complete a proper SWOT analysis are: Gather the right stakeholders together. You need to involve more than yourself when going through a SWOT analysis. Key leaders and...
When developing a marketing plan you should use a business planning SWOT template for your product or service. By looking at what you do better than your competitors you can start to understand the best way to market your product. This free SWOT analysis template for Word showcases the opportunities for the business. GET THIS SWOT TEMPLATE
Use the following free Checklist to start your SWOT Analysis. SWOT Analysis Checklist 2022 The "S" in SWOT Analysis — Strengths (Internal, Positive Attributes of Your Business)...
In general, a SWOT analysis will involve the following steps. Step 1: Determine Your Objective A SWOT analysis can be broad, though more value will likely be generated if the analysis is...
There are many resources out there to help you with your SWOT analysis, such as SCORE's SWOT analysis checklist. Your responses to each of the 48 questions on the checklist can help you define short- and long-term goals for your business and determine the action steps necessary to reach those goals.
BUSINESS PLANNING CHECKLIST WITH SWOT ANALYSIS INTERNAL FACTORS STRENGTHS (+) IMPORTANCE WEAKNESSES (-) EXTERNAL FACTORS OPPORTUNITIES (+) THREATS (-) SWOT ANALYSIS MATRIX You can use the SWOT Analysis tab in this template DATE DUE SELF-ASSESSMENT DEFINE OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS DONE X CLICK HERE TO CREATE IN SMARTSHEET
Besides tables, a new way of conducting a SWOT analysis is through checklists. While not necessarily as visual, using a checklist makes it easier to conduct a SWOT analysis on the go thanks to its straightforward structure and ease of use. A checklist is also easier to modify as needed, making it easier for multi-industry use.
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your business. Developing a SWOT analysis can help you look at your business in a new way and from different directions. It can also help you to: create or fine tune your business strategy
Group 1: Strengths that can help you take advantage of opportunities facing your business. Group 2: Strengths that can help you head off potential threats. Step #3 Divide your weaknesses into two groups: Group 1: Weaknesses that require improvement before you can take advantage of opportunities.
A SWOT analysis organizes your top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats into an organized list and is usually presented in a simple two-by-two grid. Go ahead and download our free template if you just want to dive right in and get started. Why do a SWOT Analysis?
Download Business Plan Checklist with SWOT Analysis - Excel. Business Startup Checklist in Excel. This checklist template is ideal for startup organizations. It allows you to list and categorize key tasks that you need to complete, including items related to research, strategic relationships, finance, development, and more. Check off each task ...
Business Plan Checklist With SWOT Analysis Excel Sheets - Etsy $5.55 Low in stock Business plan checklist with SWOT analysis Excel Sheets Template. Fully Editable, Instant Download Link TheBusinessDivaCo 15 sales | Add to cart Message Chelsea 2 shop reviews Sort by: Most recent Response from Chelsea Sarah Thank you so much! Purchased item:
Every business owner should conduct a regular SWOT analysis to assess the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to its competition. ... Download SCORE's templates to help you plan for a new business startup or grow your existing business. CONNECT. 1165 Herndon Parkway, Suite 100 } Herndon, VA 20170 1-800-634 ...
Do a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats). Examine if the SWOT was in alignment with your previous year's goal. Based on this analysis, add new strategies in your business ...
First, you should attempt to match your strengths with your opportunities. Next, you should try to convert weaknesses into strengths. Let's take a look how this works. 1. Harness your strengths. One of the best things about the strengths you identified in your SWOT analysis is that you're already doing them.
One way to do this is to consider how your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats overlap with each other. This is sometimes called a TOWS analysis. For example, look at the strengths you identified, and then come up with ways to use those strengths to maximize the opportunities (these are strength-opportunity strategies).
The Term SWOT is an abbreviation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a tool that helps businesses create a marketing strategy that answers present and future business opportunities. There are four basic elements in a SWOT analysis. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal to the organization.
Our detailed SWOT analysis template and worksheet are both free, and available for download as a PDF. Print the SWOT analysis template and complete your SWOT analysis collaboratively with employees and customers, or by yourself. Ready to get the SWOT analysis template? Fill out the form to get started >>> How to do a SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is done as part of the overall corporate planning process in which financial and operational goals are set for the upcoming year and strategies are created to accomplish these goals. It is also a very important and crucial ingredient in a business plan. 1. Strengths.
SWOT analysis is a technique developed at Stanford in the 1970s, frequently used in strategic planning.SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and is a structured planning method that evaluates those four elements of an organization, project or business venture.A SWOT analysis is a simple, but powerful, framework for leveraging the organization's strengths ...