SWOT ANALYSIS

Introduction:
SWOT analysis is a framework for identifying and analyzing an
organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
These words make up the SWOT acronym.The primary goal of
SWOT analysis is to increase awareness of the factors that go
into making a business decision or establishing a business
strategy. To do this, SWOT analyzes the internal and external
environment and the factors that can impact the viability of a
decision.Businesses commonly use SWOT analysis, but it is also
used by nonprofit organizations and, to a lesser degree,
individuals for personal assessment. SWOT is also used to
assess initiatives, products or projects. As an example, CIOs
could use SWOT to help create a strategic business planning
template or perform a competitive analysis.The SWOT framework
is credited to Albert Humphrey, who tested the approach in the
1960s and 1970s at the Stanford Research Institute. SWOT
analysis was originally developed for business and based on data
from Fortune 500 companies. It has been adopted by
organizations of all types as a brainstorming aid to making
business decisions.

What does SWOT stand for?

A SWOT analysis is a technique that businesses often use to assess

four key aspects of their organization. This analysis can help
companies better understand how likely they are to succeed and
what areas they should focus on to improve.So, what is a SWOT
analysis in project management? Just as business owners and
managers can use a SWOT to assess their company, project
managers can use the same technique to assess their projects. 
 Strengths: These are internal factors (factors you can control)
that set your project or business up for success. Project
strengths include any aspects of the project that make it likely to
succeed. Some examples are detailed project requirements, an
engaged customer, robust project management software, and
experienced team members. 
 Weaknesses: Weaknesses are internal factors that may make it
difficult for you to succeed. For instance, if your team has never
worked together before and several members are new and
inexperienced. Other internal weaknesses could
be overallocated resources, a lack of visibility into
progress, disengaged stakeholders, or a lack of project funding. 
 Opportunities: Opportunities are factors that are outside of
your control (external factors) that could help your project
succeed. They could be current opportunities that exist now but
have not yet been taken advantage of or future opportunities
that you think may happen. If your primary material vendor
suddenly offered a discount, it would be an opportunity to save
your project money. If another project at your company finished
early, it could free up resources you can then use to help your
project succeed. 
 Threats: These are external factors that could harm your project
if they were to take place. As with opportunities, they can be
current or future threats. The possibility of one of your vendors
going out of business would be a threat. Other threats could be
bad weather (such as a snowstorm causing employees to miss
work), increased costs of supplies, materials, or contractors. 
the purpose of a SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis in project management helps you plan out your
project and consider factors that may help or hinder its success.
The purpose of SWOT is to identify risk areas as well as controllable
factors that you need to pay attention to and monitor throughout
the project.A SWOT is a straightforward and cost-effective way to
brainstorm and plan for your project. When you fully understand
your project's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats,
you're able to plan a strategy for success that addresses these four
factors.Conducting a SWOT analysis can help you produce new ideas
to help you take advantage of what you and your team do best and
potential opportunities that might arise. A SWOT also helps increase
your awareness of weaknesses and potential threats to your project
so that you can defend against them.

As you can see, our SWOT analysis has been split into four sections:
1. Strengths: What your team is already doing well
2. Weaknesses: Where could you improve?
3. Opportunities: What are the goals you'd like to reach with this
project?
4.  Threats: Which factors might prevent you from reaching those
goals?
 SWOT analysis example

Let's say your team is looking to launch a new social media

campaign, and you need to conduct a SWOT analysis to see where
you stand heading into that project. Let's take a look:

Strengths Weaknesses
1.  Engaged existing followers
1. Lack of brand recognition 
2.  Original messaging and tone of
2. Inconsistent posting schedule
voice
3. Poor user experience on website
3.  High-quality design
Opportunities Threats
1.  Competition from similar brands
1. Grow social media following 2. Holiday season coming up — too
busy to make big changes
2. Add to newsletter mailing list 
3.  New technology/ apps may
3. Build our e-commerce sales
appear that undermine our
presence

As you can see, our SWOT analysis tells us a lot about our current
state and what we need to work on in order for our social media
campaign to be a success. Bringing in stakeholders and various team
members to inform your analysis will help you to gain an in-depth
overview, so you can get to work on improving your processes
Objectives SWOT analysis
 To make a summary analysis of external and internal factors.
 To identify key items for the management of the organization,
which involves establishing priorities for action.
 To prepare strategic options: risks and problems to solve.
 It is through analysis that we can determine the diagnosis of
the company: strengthening the positive points, indicating
which points should be improved, chances of growth,
increasing opportunities, etc.
 To conduct a sales forecast in agreement with market
conditions and study the capabilities of the company in
general.
 Internal environment (Strengths and Weaknesses) – the
integration and standardization of processes, the elimination
of inefficiencies. Focus on the core of the business.
 External environment (Opportunities and Threats) – to
have reliable and trustworthy data, to receive information
 quickly to support management in strategic decision making
and to reduce errors.

Usses of SWOT analysis to grow your business.

 A SWOT analysis is a compilation of your company’s strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
 The primary objective of a SWOT analysis is to help organizations
develop a full awareness of all the factors involved in making a
business decision.
 Perform a SWOT analysis before you commit to any sort of company
action, whether you are exploring new initiatives, revamping
internal policies, considering opportunities to pivot or altering a
plan midway through its execution.
 Use your SWOT analysis to discover recommendations and
strategies, with a focus on leveraging strengths and opportunities to
overcome weaknesses and threats.

To run a successful business, you should regularly analyze your

processes to ensure you are operating as efficiently as possible.
While there are numerous ways to assess your company, one of the
most effective methods is to conduct a SWOT analysis.A SWOT
(strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis is a
planning process that helps your company overcome challenges and
determine what new leads to pursueThe primary objective of a
SWOT analysis is to help organizations develop a full awareness of
all the factors involved in making a business decision. This method
was created in the 1960s by Albert Humphrey of the Stanford
Research Institute, during a study conducted to identify why
corporate planning consistently failed. Since its creation, SWOT has
become one of the most useful tools for business owners to start and
grow their companies.“It is impossible to accurately map out a small
business’s future without first evaluating it from all angles, which
includes an exhaustive look at all internal and external resources
and threats,” Bonnie Taylor, chief marketing strategist at CCS
Innovations, told Business News Daily. “A SWOT accomplishes this
in four straightforward steps that even rookie business owners can
understand and embrace.”

Characteristics of a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis focuses on the four elements of the acronym,
allowing companies to identify the forces influencing a strategy,
action or initiative. Knowing these positive and negative elements
can help companies more effectively communicate what parts of a
plan need to be recognized.

When drafting a SWOT analysis, individuals typically create a table

split into four columns to list each impacting element side by side
for comparison. Strengths and weaknesses won’t typically match
listed opportunities and threats verbatim, although they should
correlate, since they are ultimately tied together.

Billy Bauer, managing director of Royce Leather, noted that pairing

external threats with internal weaknesses can highlight the most
serious issues a company faces.

“Once you’ve identified your risks, you can then decide whether it is
most appropriate to eliminate the internal weakness by assigning
company resources to fix the problems, or to reduce the external
threat by abandoning the threatened area of business and meeting it
after strengthening your business,” said Bauer.

Internal factors

Strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) refer to internal factors, which

are the resources and experience readily available to you.
These are some commonly considered internal factors:

 Financial resources (funding, sources of income and

investment opportunities)
 Physical resources (location, facilities and equipment)
 Human resources (employees, volunteers and target
audiences)
 Access to natural resources, trademarks, patents and
copyrights
 Current processes (employee programs, department
hierarchies and software systems – like CRM
Software and Accounting Software)

External factors

External forces influence and affect every company, organization

and individual. Whether these factors are connected directly or
indirectly to an opportunity (O) or threat (T), it is important to note
and document each one.

External factors are typically things you or your company do not

control, such as the following:

 Market trends (new products, technology advancements and

shifts in audience needs)
 Economic trends (local, national and international financial
trends)
 Funding (donations, legislature and other sources)
 Demographics
 Relationships with suppliers and partners
 Political, environmental and economic regulations

After you create your SWOT framework and fill out your SWOT
analysis, you will need to come up with some recommendations and
strategies based on the results. Linda Pophal, owner and CEO of
consulting firm Strategic Communications, said these strategies
should focus on leveraging strengths and opportunities to
overcome weaknesses and threats.

“This is actually the area of strategy development where

organizations have an opportunity to be most creative and where
innovative ideas can emerge, but only if the analysis has been
appropriately prepared in the first place,” said Pophal.

Methodology
The company’s internal environment is the grouping together of
human, financial, and physical, etc. elements, in which you can
exercise greater control, such as the results of strategies set by
management.

In this environment it is possible to identify the strengths,

corresponding to the features and capabilities that together become
a competitive advantage for a company, and the weaknesses are the
weaknesses that a company has in comparison to its current or
potential competitors.

Understand how to use IT governance to control risks and

information.

But the external environment consists of factors that exist outside

the organizational boundaries, and that can somehow influence it. It
is an environment with which there is no control but should be
monitored continuously as it is the basis for strategic planning.

The analysis of the external environment is commonly divided into

macro environmental factors (political, demographic, technological,
economic, etc.) and microenvironmental factors (suppliers,
partners, customers, etc.). These must constantly be monitored
before and after the definition of company strategies.

Thus, through this monitoring, it will be possible to identify

promptly the opportunities and threats that arise.

Finally, one last thought. If we consider that external factors

influence all companies operating in the same market
homogeneously, we can say that only those who can best identify
the changes and have the agility to adapt are the ones that can
take better advantage of the opportunities and suffer only
slightly from realized threats.

Conclousion
A realistic recognition of the weaknesses and threats that exist for
your effort is the first step to countering them with a robust and
creative set of strengths and opportunities. A SWOT analysis
identifies your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to
assist you in making strategic plans and decisions.SWOT is a simple
yet comprehensive way of assessing the positive and negative forces
within and without your organization, so you can be better prepared
to act effectively. The more stakeholders you involve in preparing
the SWOT, the more valuable your analysis will be.Whatever courses
of action you decide on, the four-cornered SWOT analysis prompts
you to move in a balanced way throughout your program. It reminds
you toA SWOT analysis will be most helpful if you use it to support
the vision, mission, and objectives you have already defined. The
SWOT will at least provide perspective, and at best will reveal
connections and areas for action.

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