SWOT analysis

Strengths Weaknesses
OUTLINE YOUR STRENGTHS OUTLINE YOUR WEAKNESSES
For example: location, staff expertise, competitive advantage, price, reputation, quality These might include lack of expertise, limited resources, lack of access to skills or
control. technology, inferior service offerings, or the poor location of your business.

Opportunities Threats
OUTLINE YOUR OPPORTUNITIES OUTLINE YOUR THREATS
These may be the result of market growth, lifestyle changes, resolution of problems These may include intolerable price increases by suppliers, governmental regulation,
associated with current situations, positive market perceptions about your business, or economic downturns, devastating media or press coverage, a shift in consumer
the ability to offer greater value that will create a demand for your services. behaviour that reduces your sales, or technology that may make your products,
equipment, or services obsolete.

The Information is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide specific financial, investment, tax, legal, accounting or other advice to you, and should not be acted or relied upon in that
regard without seeking the advice of a professional. Your advisor can help to ensure that your own circumstances have been properly considered and any action is taken on the latest available information.
SWOT review
Strengths Weaknesses
MAXIMIZE YOUR STRENGTHS REDUCE YOUR WEAKNESSES
Outline what you can do to make the most of your strengths by protecting or enhancing. Outline what you can do to reduce the impact your weaknesses have on your business.

Opportunities Threats
MAXIMIZE YOUR OPPORTUNITIES REDUCE THE IMPACT OF THE THREATS
Outline what you can do to take further advantage of your opportunities. Outline what steps you can take to reduce possible threats.

The Information is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide specific financial, investment, tax, legal, accounting or other advice to you, and should not be acted or relied upon in that
regard without seeking the advice of a professional. Your advisor can help to ensure that your own circumstances have been properly considered and any action is taken on the latest available information.
SWOT analysis guide

Strategic planning is one of the biggest concerns of any business, from long-standing
global conglomerates to one-man-bands that have just started up.

Everyone wants to move forward, but Our SWOT template will help you to First, we look at the grid horizontally.
finding out where you should go and identify each of these characteristics The top row – strengths and weaknesses
how you get there – and agreeing with for your business so that you can better – are internal factors that you have
other stakeholders along the way – can understand what you’re doing well, what some control over. Strengths might
be a bit of a headache, to say the least. you could improve, and which external include highly trained and experienced
Having said that, it was a lot harder factors could affect your business. staff, strong brand awareness or a great
before SWOT Analysis was developed to location. Examples of weaknesses could
Understanding the SWOT matrix
help businesses assess their Strengths, be quality issues, logistical problems, or
The concept seems simple, which is one
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats poor service standards.
of the reasons it’s such an effective tool
– SWOT. The bottom row represents external
for business analysis. Each of the four
Strengths – top strengths or benefits of factors are represented in a grid like this: factors that are outside your control. For
your business, and how you can protect example, a threat might be a competitor
and enhance them. trying to lure away your best employees,

S W
Weaknesses – your weaknesses or issues, whereas an opportunity could be a new
and how you can minimize them or do technology changing how a process is
better. done.

Opportunities – top opportunities for Now it’s time to look at the matrix
your business and how you can access vertically. The first column – strengths
and take advantage of them. and opportunities – are both positive

O T
factors. They are helpful. The second
Threats – your top threats, and how you
column lists the issue’s weaknesses and
can minimize them and do better.
threats, both of which are negative and
harmful.
 SWOT analysis guide

How to use the SWOT template

There are four steps to effectively conducting a SWOT analysis:

1. Define the issue 3. Analyze the results

Clearly identify the issue you’re analyzing. Whether you’re The idea here is to be brutally honest with yourself. Are there
looking at your business as a whole, assessing a new idea or strengths you’re not making the most of, opportunities you’re
analyzing a competitor, define it as clearly as you can. The missing or weaknesses you’re ignoring? Think about each
better defined the issue, the better able you’ll be in identifying of these factors and how you might take advantage of those
relevant factors. that are helpful and fix, mitigate, or eliminate those that are
harmful.
2. Work the grid
Asses the issue you’re analyzing using each of the four criteria. 4. Rinse and repeat
This is not always a linear process and you should feel free Run a SWOT analysis on a regular basis, such as each quarter
to jump around the grid as ideas come to you. For example, so that you’re continually fine tuning your business strategy, or
as you’re listing strengths, you may realise that a serious risk when you’re assessing a new idea or need assistance making
exists that threatens that particular strength. decisions.

Matching strengths to opportunities Matching weaknesses to opportunities

Maximize both strengths and opportunities. For example, Minimize weaknesses and maximize opportunities. For
match a new market (opportunity) with a brand awareness example, improve logistics (weakness) to meet a new market
advantage (strength). (opportunity).

Matching strengths to threats Matching weaknesses to threats

Minimizing a threat by maximizing a strength. For example, Minimize weaknesses and threats. For example, a struggling
tackling a price-leading market entrant (threat) with a PR company (with weaknesses) merges with competitor (threat)
campaign highlighting brand trust (strength). to survive.

Being able to visualize the strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, and threats of your business and various
projects is essential in fine-tuning your strategy, and that’s
what the SWOT matrix helps you to do.
They’re essential for making decisions and exploring new
ideas.

The Information is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide specific financial, investment, tax, legal, accounting or other advice to you, and should
not be acted or relied upon in that regard without seeking the advice of a professional. Your advisor can help to ensure that your own circumstances have been properly
considered and any action is taken on the latest available information.