The purpose of the SWOT analysis is to choose a strategy and develop a plan for its implementation based on the study of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization or the enterprise, the opportunities and threats emanating from the external environment, and their impact on the performance of the enterprise. Conducting a SWOT analysis involves the following actions: identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise, opportunities and threats, and establishing links between them, which can then be used in the implementation of the strategy.
Instructions
Step 1
Study the external environment of your organization: its near and far environment (suppliers, customers), business conditions and the attractiveness of the industry.
Step 2
Based on the analysis of this information, compile a list of opportunities and threats for your enterprise. Please note that not all opportunities and threats affect the enterprise in the same way and can be realized in reality. Therefore, pay special attention to those that have a high likelihood of implementation and great power of influence. They must be left for further analysis.
Step 3
Determine during the analysis of the internal environment of the enterprise its strengths and weaknesses. The internal environment of the enterprise includes: marketing, production, finance, management, personnel, research and development system. Its analysis allows us to find out that internal potential and those opportunities that should be counted on in achieving goals, clarify the goals and mission of the organization, choose a development strategy and determine the ways of its implementation. This means that potential analysis involves not only studying the structure of an enterprise, its departments, the equipment it possesses, the level of personnel, the state of finances or marketing services, etc. Together with the general assessment, you need to determine what is the competitive position of your company, whether its potential meets the development strategy and the chosen goals, what is its strength and weakness, and what needs to be paid the closest attention.
Step 4
To assess the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise, compare it with the main competitor in terms of key success factors, analyzing in detail such indicators as the marketing of the enterprise, its financial capabilities, production, management system and personnel.
Step 5
Rate each factor on a ten-point scale in importance and on a five-point scale in terms of the strength of its influence on the success of the organization. The maximum score corresponds to the most important factor and the strength of influence on success. The result is found as the product of the importance value and the assessment of the strength of influence on success (P = B * CB).
Step 6
Next, determine the place that each factor took in the ranking results. The first place corresponds to the highest result, the last one to the lowest. For further consideration, leave out the first 8-10 factors with the greatest impact, the so-called "minimum" success factors.
Step 7
After compiling a list of opportunities and threats affecting the enterprise, its strengths and weaknesses, establish connections that determine the interactions between them using the SWOT matrix. Consider the possible pairwise combinations on each of the four internal fields of the matrix and highlight those that should be taken into account further developing your organisation's behavior strategy.
Step 8
Analyzing the results of the SWOT method, they make the final choice of a development strategy and develop a strategic action plan, which determines what needs to be done in order to use the opportunities and their strengths, how to improve the indicators that turned out to be lower than those of the competitor, and to minimize the consequences of threats when implementation of the strategy.
