By Mark Oldberg: October 30, 2017: Blog

 

The SWOT analysis is a great evaluation tool. It can be used to evaluate just about anything, but it is most often used to evaluate a business.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These 4 categories are split into two areas. Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company, while opportunities and threats are outside the company.

 When evaluating your strengths ask yourself questions like:

• What are we good at?
• What resources do we have?
• What unique value do we provide?  

 Weaknesses questions:

• Where are the holes in our business?
• What do we struggle to do well?
• What services are we unable to provide, but should?

 Opportunities questions:

• What is happening in the market that we could take advantage of?
• Is the market growing?
• What is the next trend that we could benefit from?

 Threats questions:

• What is something outside our control that could cost us sales?
• Who are our competitors?
• What technological advancements could hurt our business?

 

I think the SWOT analysis is one of the first things you should do when you are thinking about starting a business. It is a great way to brainstorm both the positives and negatives of your new potential business. You can then make strategic plans based on what you have come up with. You can utilize the SWOT analysis at regular intervals to ensure you company is being proactive instead of reactive. Continual self-evaluation is what separates the good companies from the great ones.

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