During discussing about 5Cs analysis, I discussed how you require to know all the details about a company. Here, I will focus on SWOT Analysis which will help you to assess about any company.
For doing a company analysis, you should contemplate the company's competitive advantage and how it can be sustained for a long time. Familiarising yourself with all the advantages and disadvantages owned by the firm is also vital.
Using this framework, you will have access to all the strengths, weaknesses, success drivers, and future threats of the firm within a short time frame. This will help you to make wiser decisions related to the company like future product launches, maximising profits and minimising shortcomings.
You now understand why you must conduct a SWOT analysis of your company. I will now explain what is it and how it is conducted with some examples.
An overview of SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is a strategic tool to help you understand a company & analyze the industry it operates in. It can be referred to as a simple, but powerful, framework.
SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for assessing a business based on four key aspects; Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It ideally utilizes the company's strengths, mitigates weaknesses, minimizes threats, and leverages its opportunities.
Any project that you work on will need a SWOT analysis. This is the first step to identifying the objectives of the venture. It will also help you to identify internal and external factors that are of prime importance in achieving objectives.
This framework has four elements of a company, categorized as internal and external strategic factors. These four factors are represented below in a matrix format.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal strategic factors that define dynamics, capabilities, and limitations in internal operations and management.
Opportunities and threats are external strategic factors. These factors define the characteristics of the industry or market which directly impact (whether positively or negatively) its working and growth.
How to do SWOT Analysis?
Here are a few tips on how to conduct an effective SWOT analysis:
- Engage different people in the business with different roles, such as salespeople, managers, customers, etc., to get a varied perspective.
- Make sure you list the points in bullet points so that you don't waste your time with long, vague descriptions. This will give you clarity.
- To achieve the best results, be honest while listing down the strengths and weaknesses of your company.
- Try to perform a SWOT analysis of your organization twice a year, so you can remain up to date with the latest happenings and devise effective strategies for your company.
We have conducted a detailed SWOT analysis of many firms like amazon, apple, Starbucks, etc.
Conclusion
As you now know, SWOT analyses are crucial to your business. You must also have a clear understanding of them by reading the article.
When you read the SWOT analyses of various other firms mentioned in the article, you will gain an in-depth understanding of them.