Whats the point in a SWOT without the ANALYSIS?

Most business people know what a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) grid looks like, indeed mos will have actually filled one in.

But completing a SWOT without any analysis is little more than recording on a 4 box grid stuff you already know.

So, what is the ANALYSIS all about then? Antone's Business Environment consists of three areas:-

1. The External Far - these are things that will have an impact on you, you cannot do much about them but you need to be able to react to them; think of the impact the smoking ban had on pubs and restaurants.
2. The External Near - these are a bit closer, you can influence these but not control them. An example could be your customers; how you price, position, market your offering are examples of how you can influence their spending habits
3. Finally, there is the area you do have some control - Internal. Examples here are the culture of your organisation or the skill sets available within your business.

Breaking down the SWOT - the Strengths and Weaknesses come from the analysis of your internal resources take a critical look at your:-

• Style and Culture
• Skills and Resources, and
• Systems and Processes

The Opportunities and Threats come from your analysis of the External factors, a good structure for looking at the External Far is PESTLE (other variants include PEST, STEEPL):-

• Political
• Economic
• Social
• Technological
• Legal
• Environmental

And a tried and tested model for looking at the External Near is Michael Porter's '5 Competitive Forces':-
Where does the 'power' lie? Ask yourself about your level of vulnerability, is it HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW? For example if you rely on one supplier for a particular product then they, the suppler, has all the power and your level of vulnerability (to price rise or shortages) is HIGH.

Having done some detailed analysis you can now complete a SWOT and as likely as not there will be factors you would not have thought about had the analysis bit been missing!

the SWOT could be quite busy so its now all about prioritising,

• what Opportunities can you exploit with your Strengths
• do your Weaknesses make you vulnerable to any Threats
• neglect a Strength and it could become obsolete, or a weakness
• can you realistically do anything about your weaknesses or do you need to continually remind yourself about them?
• could a Strength or Weakness be tweaked slightly to enable you to pursue an Opportunity?

Can something be both an Opportunity and a Threat? Yes, it can - think back to the earlier example of the smoking ban. sure it was a threat to pubs where people liked to smoke but it was also an opportunity to attract new customers who may previously have been put off by the smoky atmosphere.


Mike Newman
07899 728 628
mikenewman@xlearning.co.uk
www.xlearning.co.uk