This is a SWOT PowerPoint template. You’ve probably heard about a SWOT analysis more than once in your life, but do you have an idea of how helpful it can be for your company?
This tool is commonly used in any decision-making situation by governmental units, non-profit organizations, and individuals.
When deciding on whether to invest your time (and probably, money) in a specific endeavor, the beginning may feel knotty, and in the back of your head your grandma’s old saying echoes: “who starts badly ends badly.”
Before rushing into making incautious decisions, sit back with your team, a cup of coffee and go over a SWOT analysis. It will enlighten the overall situation and direct your actions towards your objective will be easier.
The acronym SWOT stands for: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
After your objective has been defined, a SWOT analysis will aid in determining which factors will support or block that goal.
Let’s start by briefly defining each of the variables of our analysis:
As you may have noticed, your strengths and weaknesses are internal factors of your company or group. They can be more easily improved or reshaped, whereas opportunities and threats will sometimes depend on elements in which you may have little or no control on, such as legislation, economic or cultural matters, etc.
Now that each of the variables is clear, you can start to define them in your group. To have the right answers, the right questions must be made.
How to define my company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunites and threats?
When making a list of your strengths, always keep in mind your competition and define your strong points in relation to them. What is it that you do better than everyone else? If there’s something that everyone else offers, this becomes a necessity and no longer a strength, (ouch). Some questions to guide you:
This process may seem as painful, listing your weaknesses, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. Think about it; everyone has a weakness. Identifying and acknowledging it will only help you to improve and become stronger. When defining your company’s weaknesses, fearlessly answer questions like these:
Take into account which external conditions play in your favor. Identifying them not only will make you and your team optimistic but will also help to keep them in mind and exploit them when possible. To distinguish them:
Think about external factors that could harm or block your objective. We’ll say it again: having identified them makes them more easy to handle and less to fear of. Expect problems and eat them for breakfast, they say.
If your objective is not feasible, don’t cry (much), define a new one and repeat the process!
The SWOT analysis will define your strategy, organizational or personal. A strong relation between strength and opportunity can convert into a company’s aggressive approach. Whereas, abundant weaknesses and threats could suggest a defensive scenario.
Threats and weaknesses could become opportunities and strengths as well, for example: if your current market isn’t profitable enough, you could always focus on identifying a new market and targeting it. If this isn’t possible, a company or group should try to minimize these weaknesses or threats by all means possible.
Every business, big or small, will find a SWOT PowerPoint template enlightening and useful. It can be used as much as needed when exploring new opportunities or with every vital decision a group or company has to make.
