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SWOT Analysis

This is a useful technique for understanding strengths and weaknesses and identifying opportunities and threats. It is a framework that your client group can use to analyse themselves and can help them to craft a strategy that will help towards success.

Strengths Weaknesses
Opportunities Threats


The following questions can help you to guide your client to complete the SWOT grid for their own enterprise

Strengths

  • What advantages does your enterprise have over competitors?
  • What do you do better than anyone else?
  • What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others can’t?
  • What is the level of community support?
  • What expertise does your team bring to the table?

Weaknesses

  • What could you improve?
  • What should you avoid?
  • What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?

Opportunities

  • What good opportunities can you spot?
  • What interesting trends are you aware of? Useful opportunities can come from such things as local events or changes in technology, markets, government policy, social patterns, population profiles and lifestyle changes.

Threats

  • What obstacles do you face?
  • What are your competitors doing?
  • Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products or services changing?
  • Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
  • Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?

 

Encourage your client group to think widely and creatively with their SWOT. Could any threats become opportunities, for example?