A Company SWOT Analysis [A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis] allows company management to formulate strategies to increase profits for a company. The Company SWOT Analysis also helps a company and its employees to adapt to changing factors in the industry.

The Company SWOT Analysis can be classified into internal and external factors affecting a company. The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Company SWOT Analysis represent the internal factors that influence the viability of the company. The Opportunities and Threats, on the other hand, are the external factors that that make up a part of the Company SWOT Analysis that may affect the company’s performances.

What Are Examples of Internal Strengths of a Company?

In the Company SWOT Analysis strength is essentially a factor from within the company that has resulted in the success of the organization. For example, a management team with strong caliber denotes that the company is forward looking and is flexible to change. Both factors allow the company to persevere among competitors, especially when external threats, such as changes in regulation with respects to the industry, occur.

Another example of company strength is a hefty financial cash flow. Companies that are liquid in cash are more likely to succeed in the long-run than companies that have invested in illiquid assets (such as heavy equipment / renovations in the office.) This is because working capital (cash) is required to sustain the company’s ability to pay employees / suppliers / fund marketing campaigns.

What Are Examples of Weaknesses within a Company?

A weakness of an organization as seen in the Company SWOT Analysis can be detrimental to the survival of the company. A popular example is poor retention rate of employees. This equates to a high turnover, of for example, dissatisfied employees leaving for other job opportunities. The fact that this takes place can be due to a number of reasons. One of them may be poor compensation packages (due to lack of funds). Another example may be a weak organizational culture that inhibits employees from expressing their views and concerns.

What Are Opportunities in the External Environment?

Opportunities need to be included in the Company SWOT Analysis. An opportunity allows a company to increase profits by offering a gap in demand, a wider consumer base, or an opportunity to reduce costs. A company’s strategic goal is to move forward to achieving opportunities that arise in the market. For example, a coffee house may find an opportunity when new suppliers of coffee beans enter into the market. This increases competition amongst coffee bean suppliers and thus, reduces costs for the coffee house. Opportunities are almost always found in shifts in consumer preferences. For example, with the increase of women penetrating the workforce, more clothing designers nab the opportunity to produce fashionable career attire for working women.

What Are the Threats Inherent in the Environment?

Finally, the Company SWOT Analysis determines if there are threats. A threat can affect the company negatively, especially if the company is unable to adapt to the threat and mitigate its harmful effects. For example, a threat for small grocery retailers would be the emergence of a hyper-market in the area – Wal-Mart – for instance. A common threat in any economy would be an economic recession, which reduces consumers’ consumption. This threat generally reduces revenue in companies, regardless of the sector.

At the end of a Company SWOT Analysis, the company’s plans to move forward should be centered on the opportunities quadrant. Opportunities translate into opportunities to increase revenue as well as to reduce costs; this, in turn, is transformed into higher profits. To achieve success in the opportunities quadrant, the company should look at capitalizing on its strengths, such as an effective marketing strategy. By using their strengths, companies should also be able to strategize against the threats that are inherent in the market. Threats are extinguishable but steps to mitigate them can be taken to protect the operations on the company. Although companies always capitalize on their strengths, they should not ignore their weaknesses. Weaknesses represent loopholes within their organizational structure / operations. A company should resolve to fill in their weaknesses in the long-run to ward off aggressive competition.

The Company SWOT Analysis is essential to making your business succeed. The inward and outward perspective helps the CEO and other management to develop the birds eye view that is often lacking by just crunching numbers.

The introspection needed to perform the Company SWOT Analysis is not comparable to meditation, yet when one thinks of the monk who consistently meditates and looks inward; it is that inward looking that allows him to develop the harmonic view of the world.   So meditate, i.e., or do the Company SWOT Analysis along with your Business Plan on a regular basis so you too can develop harmony within your company.

Do you want a FREE SWOT Analysis Template and help in how to use it?  It’s simple, just CLICK HERE.

Without a SWOT Analysis example I frankly was lost. I had been in business myself for over 25 years before I even heard the term SWOT — do you think that had anything to do with why I struggled? I needed a SWOT analysis example to help me understand how to apply the principle of SWOT.

So here is a SWOT Analysis example to help you catch the vision.

This SWOT analysis example is based on an imaginary situation. The scenario is based on a business-to-business manufacturing company, which historically rely on distributors to take their products to the end user market. The opportunity, and therefore the subject for the SWOT analysis, is for the manufacturer to create a new company of its own to distribute its products direct to certain end-user sectors, which are not being covered or developed by its normal distributors.

So that is one SWOT Analysis Example. Here is another SWOT Analysis Example. This SWOT Analysis example is looking at the how to increase or double the amount of business turnover in the next three years.

These are just two SWOT Analysis Example. The SWOT Analysis Example can be by company, by business, by division, by department, etc. It can be short, long or in between. Hopefully, you don’t need 10,000 words, rather just three: SWOT Analysis Example.

These are just two SWOT Analysis Examples. The SWOT Analysis Example can be by company, by business, by division, by department, etc. It can be short, long or in between. Hopefully, you don’t need 10,000 words, rather just three: SWOT Analysis Example.  You don’t need to spend $10,000 or for that matter even $1 to get our FREE INFORMATION, so CLICK HERE.

To understand the SWOT Analysis you need to know the SWOT Analysis background and history. If you can understand where the SWOT Analysis came from, it will help you to understand its relevancy to you in today’s market.

The SWOT analysis origin technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from many top companies.  The background to the SWOT Analysis stemmed from the need to find out why corporate planning failed. The research was funded by the Fortune 500 companies to find out what could be done about this failure. The Research Team included Marion Dosher, Dr Otis Benepe, Albert Humphrey, Robert Stewart, and Birger Lie.

The SWOT Analysis began with the corporate planning trend, which seemed to appear first at Du Pont in 1949. By 1960 every Fortune 500 company had a ‘corporate planning manager’ (or equivalent) and ‘associations of long range corporate planners’ had sprung up in both the USA and the UK.

However a unanimous opinion developed in all of these companies that corporate planning in the shape of long range planning was not working, did not pay off, and was an expensive investment in futility.

The goal was to identify why corporate planning failed. The resulting research identified a number of key areas and the tool used to explore each of the critical areas was called The SOFT analysis.  Humphrey and the original research team used the categories “What is good in the present is Satisfactory, good in the future is an Opportunity; bad in the present is a Fault and bad in the future is a Threat.” This was called the SOFT analysis.

It is reported that in 1964 an academic, by the name of Urick and a researcher by the name of Orr changed the F to a W, and it has stuck as that, soFt to sWot

Some researchers reference the 1965 publication Business Policy, Text and Cases” by Learned, Christensen, Andrews and Guth (from Harvard University) in which a framework is used which closely resembles SWOT, however these words are not used and certainly the framework is not described as succinctly as we know it today. In this book the terms used are:

Opportunities, risks, environment and problems of other industries. In fact these authors reference a course note from K R Andrews, “a concept of corporate strategy ” for much of the strategy framework.

On its own, it is said that The SWOT analysis is meaningless.  It works best when part of an overall strategy or in a given context or situation.  This strategy may be as simple as:

1. Goal or objective
   
2. The SWOT analysis
   
3. Evaluation or measures of success strategy
   
4. Action
   

The historical background of The SWOT Analysis is exciting to those that are historically minded [not hysterically minded]

(Since my wife is a Historian, I am not saying this tongue in cheek.). To those of us who are business minded The SWOT Analysis is relevant, not because of histrionics, but because of what it can do for us as we develop and improve our business.

You can learn about the SWOT Analysis and the Business Plan for FREE.  Go HERE to learn more.

Company SWOT Analysis, Are You Gonna Play…Or Plan First

A Company SWOT Analysis can be one of your best friends when you are trying to run your business. If you searched and found this article, you probably already know that SWOT is an acronym for “Strengths“, “Weaknesses“, “Opportunities“ and “Threats“. It’s a process where you make sure you understand the whole situation, or in other words, see the whole picture.

Why do football and basketball coaches watch “game films” of their teams and other teams playing? They are trying to figure out where the other team poses a threat, what strengths their team has to counter those threats, how to minimize their weaknesses and capitalize on opportunities. Is it really any different than what we should be doing in our businesses?

Too many businesses are playing “street ball” they just show up for the game and go. No plan, no plays, no set defenses…just go, they certainly can put a lot of effort into their play, but not always effectively. If you don’t do a company SWOT analysis and figure out what you need to be working on, the more organized and efficient organizations are going to take your customers and the game!

Let me give you an example. I played in a church youth basketball league when I was a teenager. Most of those games were the “show up” with little or no planning or practice by the teams competing. We were different though, the gentleman asked to coach our little “church team” was a retired high school basketball coach. He reviewed our strengths, and weaknesses and created a plan. We practiced twice a week for our games on Saturday. We drilled and knew like the back of our hand a full court press, a half court press, a 3-2 zone, a 1-3-1 zone and four specific plays that we ran and practiced. Guess what…when we showed up for our games we DESTROYED other teams. Our coach taught us to look at our opponents and not only utilize our strengths, but see where they were weak and attack! It almost wasn’t fair…but it sure was fun! All of that hard work paid off big time when we were putting numbers on the board!

You don’t have to do a Company SWOT Analysis to have a successful company, but as I’ve shown, you’ll do better with analysis and planning.

For help with your analysis and planning CLICK HERE FOR FREE INFORMATION.

- Dale Bohman

A Company SWOT Analysis can be one of your best friends when you are trying to run your business. If you searched and found this article, you probably already know that SWOT is an acronym for “Strengths”, “Weaknesses”, “Opportunities” and “Threats”. It’s a process where you make sure you understand the whole situation, or in other words, see the whole picture.

Why do football and basketball coaches watch “game films” of their teams and other teams playing? They are trying to figure out where the other team poses a threat, what strengths their team has to counter those threats, how to minimize their weaknesses and capitalize on opportunities. Is it really any different than what we should be doing in our businesses?

Too many businesses are playing “street ball” they just show up for the game and go. No plan, no plays, no set defenses…just go, they certainly can put a lot of effort into their play, but not always effectively. If you don’t do a company SWOT analysis and figure out what you need to be working on, the more organized and efficient organizations are going to take your customers and the game!

Let me give you an example. I played in a church youth basketball league when I was a teenager. Most of those games were the “show up” with little or no planning or practice by the teams competing. We were different though, the gentleman asked to coach our little “church team” was a retired high school basketball coach. He reviewed our strengths, and weaknesses and created a plan. We practiced twice a week for our games on Saturday. We drilled and knew like the back of our hand a full court press, a half court press, a 3-2 zone, a 1-3-1 zone and four specific plays that we ran and practiced. Guess what…when we showed up for our games we DESTROYED other teams. Our coach taught us to look at our opponents and not only utilize our strengths, but see where they were weak and attack! It almost wasn’t fair…but it sure was fun! All of that hard work paid off big time when we were putting numbers on the board!

You don’t have to do a Company SWOT Analysis to have a successful company, but as I’ve shown, you’ll do better with analysis and planning.

Are you showing up just to play or to win?  If you are here to win get the game plan that has helped others succeed.  Get your FREE information about a Company SWOT Analysis here.

- Dale Bohman