There are few tools more ubiquitous in management, marketing, and other key business functions than the SWOT analysis: It involves listing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing your firm, division, functional area, or other aspects of your organization, products, or services. The results of a SWOT analysis can be (and almost always are) presented simply as a 2 x 2 grid, with one dimension representing the internal versus external factors, and the other depicting positive versus negative valence.
Are You Doing the SWOT Analysis Backwards?
The SWOT analysis is a recognized tool to identify an organization, department, product, or service’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Yet, despite the tool’s wide use, it’s often conducted ineffectively, making the analysis less than insightful with no clear path to action. Part of the problem lies in focusing on internal factors — strengths and weaknesses — first. But by turning it on its head, you can conduct a better analysis that can result in more actionable strategic recommendations. First, gather an inventory of relevant environmental conditions — the threats and opportunities. Next, explore internal strengths and weaknesses. Finally, generate recommendations using this simple sentence: “Given the condition of [external factor], our ability to [internal factor] leads to our recommendation that we [recommendation].” By looking at the external conditions first and internal internal attributes second, you will generate a better set of clear-cut and supported ideas for moving forward.