Is your organization equipped with a SWOT analysis? If not, maybe it’s because you’ve never heard of it!

A SWOT analysis is a basic technique often used in strategic planning, improving company success, organizational development, and identifying competitive advantages. Assessing these four factors will help you make better decisions and keep your business on the path to success.

Begin by conducting a brainstorming exercise with a group of people within your organization who are in charge of the same or similar objectives. Remember, a good SWOT analysis takes effort and the more you put into it, the better you understand your business and how it operates today.

STRENGTHS: First, write down the strengths of your company. What do you do well? What makes you better than your competitors? What do you have or what do you do that distinguishes you from your competition? Here are some things to consider:

• The size of similar companies in your industry
• Perception by customers of your products or services
• Industry perception of your “brand”
• Advantages you have over your competitors

EXAMPLES:

Responsibility, integrity, strong staff loyalty, strong management team, out-of-the-box problem solving, flexibility, camaraderie, sense of urgency, communication, always seeking best practices, moving employees to leverage their strengths, respect for customers / including high energy, positive atmosphere, high level of customer service and solid reputation in the industry.

WEAKNESSES: Now that you’ve determined how wonderful your company is, it’s time to look for weaknesses. The same questions should be asked when looking for weaknesses. What are you doing bad or not so good? What are other companies doing better? What’s stopping you from being more successful?

It is important that you do not ignore this section. Since a SWOT analysis is a brainstorming effort, don’t discount anything that comes to mind, and don’t be afraid to point out a weakness because it may hurt someone’s feelings. If a weakness is perceived, indicate it. The weakness you don’t mention could turn out to be the reason why some aspect of the business goes wrong or fails in the future.

Some areas of weakness to look for:

• Bad perception of your company’s brand
• Advantages that other companies have
• Lack of management or other talent of employees.

EXAMPLES:

Lack of automation, getting stuck in cumbersome minutia / processes, managers doing staff level work, micromanaging, managers not asking for help until overwhelmed, need to measure employee work, i.e. quota system, disgruntled employees or unhappy.

OPPORTUNITIES: Let’s shift the focus to external factors when looking for opportunities. Try to identify the business areas that you think your company should evaluate: opportunities to gain market share from competitors and / or grow your market to include new customers.

In addition to external factors, opportunities within your company should also be considered. Can you optimize duplicate costs and / or move employees to different positions to take advantage of their strengths? What kinds of things can you do better?

Some opportunities to search:

• New service markets
• Financial or legal problems for the competition.
• New technologies you could adopt
• Internal shifts to be more efficient

EXAMPLES: Empower employees to reach higher, maximize the use of technologies, streamline activities between departments, analyze and relocate employees to leverage their strengths, get more business from existing customers, continue to stand out as different from your industry, train employees, build your brand to attract both employees and customers.

THREATS: Finally, consider the threats to your business. Again, threats can be both internal and external. In fact, sometimes insider threats come first, opening the door to outside threats. Therefore, it is very important to do a good threat analysis.

Insider threats are generally not classified as such, which could be a bug. Any internal issues that threaten the well-being of your business should be evaluated alongside external threats.

Some possible threats are:

• Internal inefficiencies
• Cash Flow
• Competitors
• Technological Advances in Industry (Are You Keeping Up?)
• Employee / department weaknesses

EXAMPLES:

Leadership splits, falls short of mission statement, managers get territorial, teamwork gives way to individual agendas, managers get overwhelmed / exhausted, take on or carry on business that is not profitable, They don’t understand the competition, they fall behind in technology, they keep employees who won’t contribute to success, they don’t manage aggressive growth well, and they don’t keep rates / prices competitive while remaining highly profitable.

Once you have completed these exercises, assign a leader within the organization to each category who will be responsible, along with your team, for maintaining it (such as Strengths); repair it (as Weaknesses); act accordingly (as Opportunities); and protect yourself against it (such as threats).

The group then has to meet again every six months to analyze the SWOT and review it according to the reality it faces at the time.

Do you know what the SWOT of your company is? If not, now is the time to find out!