What is SWOT Analysis?

When it comes to business and strategic planning, a clear roadmap is a must.

One priceless tool could be a SWOT analysis.

It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

SWOT analysis provides a clear framework to judge your current form and where you’ll be in the future.

To put these components short:

• What's working (Strength)
• What's not working (Weakness)
• Possibilities you can grasp (Opportunities)
• Factors that would do HARM (Threat)

The blog isn’t finished!

There’s more you need to know – about SWOT analysis.

First, let’s start with the explanation.

Strength

Strength can be the internal attributes and resources that give an edge over your competitors.

Identifying your strengths can help you leverage them to drive your business forward.

The questions you need to ask:

• What are you doing good?
• What are the best things your customer likes about your business?
• What is your USP(Unique selling point)?
• Where do we outperform our competitors?

Weakness

Weaknesses can stop your goal. When you come across finding it, do something about it.

However, finding it lets you react and improvise for the better sake.

The questions you need to ask:

• What can be improved?
• Where exactly do our competitors outperform us?
• What our customers are dissatisfied with us?

Opportunities

Opportunities are like something good on your hand you missed tasting it.

It can either be obvious to see or difficult to find or whatever; you need to find & taste it.

The questions you need to ask:

• Do you have any strength that needs special attention?
• Are we missing any market trends?
• Do we need to address any markets that we haven't identified?

Threats

Threats can give you a tough time for your business. You need to be aware–if possible, you need to fix that.

Here’s an idea for you: Grasp what you think is a threat—and develop a plan to mitigate or avoid it.

Now you have a clear understanding of what SWOT analysis is—I hope so.

The questions you need to ask:

• Are we monitoring our competitor's move?
• Where are we lagging exactly?
• What are the external factors that could impact our business?

How to do a SWOT analysis for your business?

1. Form a Team

If you bring different people to a table, you’re bringing different perspectives.

Discussing different ideas can sort out many things or give a new idea.

Here's a more detailed approach:

• Consider the backgrounds, roles, and skills of your team members. Include representatives from various departments within your organization to ensure a well-rounded analysis.

• Encourage open talks and active participation. You need to make sure everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas.

• Assign a SWOT analysis leader to guide the process and keep it focused and productive.

2. Brainstorm

• You can use many methods like mind mapping, round-robin, or individual brainstorming sessions to get a set of ideas.

• Boost your team to think critically and consider both quantitative and qualitative factors. This involves adding data, customer feedback, and personal experience.

• Don't filter or evaluate ideas during this stage. The goal is to collect as much information as possible.

3. Categorize

Put down the collected data into the four SWOT categories. Want a clearer image?

• Create a visual image, such as a SWOT matrix, where you can place each factor into its respective category. It is like placing eggs into each basket(the right ones).

• You need to make sure that each egg is placed fitly–I mean each factor should defined and categorized well.

4. Prioritize

Prioritization helps you focus on the most critical factors. To get deeper into this stage:

Use a prioritization matrix or any kind of scoring system—FOR WHAT? Prioritize the important factors that could create a huge impact on your business.

How? You now have a list of factors that are categorized already. You need to roam and set a score or prioritize each one.

5. Develop Strategies

Now you have a team to discuss ideas, categorize, and set scores for each factor(to work on the most critical one), and finally, we’re here to–come up with the strategies.

Developing a strategy means making use of the SWOT analysis to improve MORE.

• To improve your strengths, focus on how you can make things better with identified opportunities.
• To mitigate a weakness, think about the list of ways you can use to overcome it. This could mean getting inspired by competitors or coming up with a unique perspective.
• For opportunities, find out your competitor's weaknesses, work on them, and turn them into your PLUS.
• For threat: Something can’t be improved, “If you think this is the fact, then you’re missing huge.” Even though the idea didn’t kick you, there’s always a way out to overcome the threat.

By going deeper into each step of the SWOT analysis process, you know more about your organization’s current state.

SWOT analysis is a must as funding for any organization that wants to scale and improve further.

If you’re a business still not considering SWOT analysis, then you’re at threat and missing opportunities.

In contrast, if you manage to pull this strategy, then your company may taste growth and fresh opportunities.