Finishing Your SWOT Analysis

If you've worked through the last three chapters and collected all the data I've discussed, it's time to make some sense of your list by organizing it in a SWOT format. Remember, the purpose of a SWOT is to help produce a good fit between your company's resources and capabilities and your external environment.

Your SWOT analysis is a balance sheet of your strategic position right now. In the analysis, you bring together all your internal factors, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as your external factors, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are factors that you can control and affect, which you identify in Chapters 7 and 8. Opportunities and threats, which you identify in this chapter, are out of your control; you can either try to take advantage of them or try to minimize them. Follow these steps to complete your SWOT analysis grid:

  1. image Construct a grid, using the SWOT Analysis Template located on the CD.

    Refer to Figure 10-2 for an example of a completed grid.

  2. Review your list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you developed over the last three chapters.

    Condense similar factors. Eliminate nonessential ones. You want to be able to see a clear picture of your strategic position. If too many factors exist, drawing any conclusions is impossible.

  3. Place your company's strengths and weaknesses in the left side of the grid. ...

Get Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.