Strengths And Weaknesses Of SWOT Analysis, Inc.

Another approach to strategy development begins with an analysis of external and internal factors, followed by some visioning, then planning. Including in the analysis phase is often a “SWOT,” a thorough examination of internal Strengths and Weaknesses, as well as external Opportunities and Threats. SWOTs are praised for capturing both the positive (strengths and opportunities) and negative (weaknesses, threats); and organizations embrace this approach with the hope of gaining a “balanced” analysis of itself, inside and out (Hetzel and Silbert, 2007).

SWOT analysis can be used to describe and analyse a company’s internal capabilities in relation to its competitive environment. A strategy behind

A SWOT analysis is best developed by a team of managers who have different perspectives of an organization’s strengths and weaknesses. The external threats and opportunities are best developed by an outside source to provide objectivity. An organization looks internally at its strengths and weaknesses and externally at its threats and opportunities. An organization’s strengths involve looking at an organization’s positive attributes, focusing on their competitive advantage. An organization’s strength looks at what they do well, their assets and other resources, and also take into account what others see as their strengths.

An internal assessment analysis named SWOT, which stands for a company 's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is conducted (Abraham, 2012). Strengths and weaknesses are the internal aspects of the normal SWOT analysis (Abraham, 2012). They include problems that need to be corrected, deficiencies recognized through a comparison with competitors, or deficiencies relative to recognized strategies such as lacking the resources to grow (Abraham, 2012). An opportunity is a product-market issue (Abraham, 2012). It must include a product or service that is actually offered, to include the existing ones, and a defined customer group at which that product or service is targeted, including the existing ones (Abraham, 2012). Threats are external trends that could have a negative effect on the company (Abraham, 2012).

SWOT, (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis describes a business’s greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Helms, 2010). With this information available, the consultant/ marketing strategist enables grouping of internal and external issues as a starting point for strategic planning (Helms, 2010). SWOT is easily put together, and one can benefit from multiple viewpoints as a brainstorming exercise (Helms, 2010). One of the first steps strategist conducts are internal weakness and strengths which range from efficiency, capacity, structure, image, resources access, and financial opportunities (Helms, 2010). The next step that have to be conducted are external factors that deal with, customers, social change, trends, competitors, technology, along with economic and political regulatory issues (Helms, 2010).

To explore these questions, strategists use three analytical techniques: SWOT analysis, strategic cost analysis, and competitive strength assessment. These tools are widely used in strategic analysis because they indicate how strongly a company holds its industry position and whether the present strategy is capable of boosting long-term performance.

A SWOT analysis is a distinguished instrument for examination of a company’s strategic situation and environment. Its objective is to recognize the schemes that will best support a business’ assets and competencies to the desires of the market. It is the basis for assessing the core abilities and restrictions and the prospects and dangers from the external environment. SWOT stands for: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are deemed internal influences where there is some level of control; while opportunities and threats are deemed external influences where there is essentially no control.

The internal factors of SWOT such as strengths and weaknesses are different from the external ones which include opportunities and threats. The main difference between the internal and external factors is that the organization can control and manage their internal factors where as the eternal ones they can only anticipate. An organization can ascertain or identify particular strengths the organization possesses which makes different from its competition, this strength can be considered as a competitive advantage. Most organization struggle with developing competitive advantage into something sustainable were its may not be easily when you can identify certain strengths that set an organization well apart from actual and potential competitors, that strength is considered a source of competitive advantage. The hardest thing for an organization to do is to develop its competitive advantage into a sustainable competitive advantage where the organization’s strengths cannot be easily copied by others businesses or made redundant/less valuable by changes influenced by the eternal factorsProvide examples of when a firm's strength might simultaneously be a weakness. While Opportunities provide

Businesses in the same industry compete against each other to meet their organization goals and sustain competitive advantage over one another. But to meet those goals, it’s important for businesses to analyze their internal and external environment to allow them to come up with new business strategies beneficial to the business. Firms can use SWOT as a starting point. SWOT is a basic technique that can be used by business owners to analyze their business and industry condition (Dess, G., Lumpkin G.T., Eisner, A., McNamara, G, 2013). Using SWOT will help business owners understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of their business. It would help them analyze and come up

SWOT analysis is a popular analysis tool used in different situations that include not just business and marketing but also project planning and personal career development (Chapman 1995-2012). As for the strategic planning, Kenneth Andrews popularized his idea that good strategy means keeping a fit between the external situations a firm faces and the internal capabilities (Hill and Westbrook, 1997). The format the SWOT analysis presented is a 2x2 'internal/external' matrix, in which questions and relative answers can be listed for analysis (chapman 1995-2012). And according to Hill and Westbrook (1997), the output of SWOT analysis comes from meetings facilitated by consultants or managers to contribute the final analysis. Brainstorming can be used for filling in the sections to answer the questions. In addition, similar arguments should be concluded and ranked according to their answers in meetings (Rauch, 2007). As for the newly developed analysis, the TOWS matrix matching the various factors enables companies to stimulate new strategic initiative (Dyson, 2004).

The focus of the SWOT analysis is to identify the key internal and external factors that are important to achieving the objective. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories; internal factors and external factors. The internal factors are the strengths and weaknesses that are internal to the company while the external factors are the opportunities and threats that presented by the external environment. The internal factors are determined by their impact on the company’s objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses for another objective. The external factors may include technological change, legislation, cultural changes, and changes in the marketplace or competitive position (Wood, 2008).

Internal strengths and weaknesses include things such as financial performance, organizational communication, product quality and availability, market share, customer perceptions, human resources, and production facilities and capacity (Ferrell and Hartline, 2014, p. 85). External opportunities and threats consist of things like technology, social trends, government regulations, and economic conditions (p. 85). A company can also determine what competitive advantages it has by conducting a SWOT analysis (p. 85). A SWOT analysis is simple and does not require any special training; however, there are several things that must be done to ensure that the analysis is productive (p. 87). Some of these things include conducting separate analyses for each product-market, identifying any current or potential competitors, sharing information across all areas of the company, looking at issues through the eyes of a customer, determining the causes of each issue, and maintaining separation between internal and external issues (p. 88-92).

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies.[1]

Organizational strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is an integral part of the strategic plan that can help put into focus the potential needs and risks that could

The first important part of a SWOT analysis is to improve the viability of an organization. SWOT identifies the risk which can arise from future threats coupled with the organization weakness. For example, a pharma company ABC has invested heavily in R& D of existing product where a new competitor is also entering with same product. Then company ABC has to decide whether it is strategically important to deal with external threat or improve the internal weakness. Company ABC can continue the R & D progress to improve the quality of existing product or else can diversify the resource to offer the product at less cost i.e. improving its efficiency. So, SWOT plays an important role in such situation and proves to be a beneficial tool to take appropriate decision of improving the weakness