SWOT Analysis

Focus on what really matters for your company or career. Sit down, give yourself enough time to consider each of the four areas, and be realistic about your company or self.

SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

When you are answering these questions, please keep a few things in mind.

Quantify! It is always better to have exact information in your report. For example, it’s better to say that you provide a service for $25 cheaper than your lead competitor than to say that your price is simply better than the others.

Prioritize! Check and see what is most important for each category. Rank them in order of importance.

Apply! The SWOT report needs to be about the right item. A SWOT report can be applied to a person, a company, a product, or a service. Figure out which one you need to analyze and go from there.


INTERNAL FACTORS (Strengths and Weaknesses)

Strengths: Think about your strengths from your own perspective and from the perspective of consumers. Also be sure to think about them compared to your competitors. Be realistic with yourself. At the same time, if you know that you are good at something, then let yourself know that!

What advantages do you or your company have?
What do you do better than anyone else?
What do other people in your market see as your strengths?
What are the factors in yourself or in your company that get the job done?

Weaknesses: Think about potential weaknesses in the same way that you did about you or your company’s strengths. If there is something unpleasant to think about or to look into, you and your company need to make that realization. This method is supposed to make you and/or your company better, so always remember to be honest.

What can be done better?
What shouldn’t you do in the future?
What went wrong in the past? Is it fixed?
What do you competitors see as a weakness in you?

EXTERNAL FACTORS (Opportunities and Threats)
Opportunities: Check out the strengths that you wrote down and see if you can open some more doors by using these strengths. Also be sure to look at your weaknesses and see if getting rid of some of them or fixing them will be beneficial to you and/or your company.

The business world is constantly changing and so is technology. Make sure to be as up-to-date as possible in the technology sector. World events also change a lot of things in many ways. Be aware of policies that could be helpful. People are most definitely constantly changing. Figure out what they like, what they have, and what they might want in the future.

What can be done?
Are there any trends that you can follow or create?
Is there a part of the market that you’re forgetting about?
Can you make more of a presence of yourself and/or your company?

Threats: Check out your weaknesses and see if there are any places where you and/or your company could potentially be damaged.

What could be or is standing in your way?
Are your product(s) and/or services quality enough?
Are there potential financial problems in the future?
Are changes in technology, government, or people potentially damaging?