Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Establishing a Starting Point: Identifying Your Business's Strategic Position

To move from where you are today to where you want to go, you have to determine your strategic position, or where you stand today. This process is like taking your SUV into a mechanic for the annual tune-up. You get an assessment of what's working, what's not, what you need to fix, and what can wait.

In this chapter and Chapters 8 and 10, you perform an annual tune-up of your business with the help of a trusted business planning tool: the SWOT. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These four categories help you focus on the key factors that define your strategic position.

Your focus in this chapter is on your company's strengths and weaknesses; Chapter 8 looks at your strengths and weakness, too, but through the eyes of your customers. In Chapter 10, you focus on completing your SWOT analysis by identifying your opportunities and threats. You see the SWOT again in Chapter 12 when you develop your company's goals and objectives based on this information.

Use the following steps and tools on the CD to get started:

1. Use the SWOT Analysis Template on the CD to start your own.

   By breaking down your internal environment into capabilities, resources, and processes, you have a place to start assessing your company. Without these categories, the task can seem a little daunting. This ...