Simple SWOT Analysis for Procurement Professionals
Who first coined the term SWOT? SWOT Analysis (short for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is a business strategy tool to assess how an organization compares to its competition. The strategy is historically credited to Albert Humphrey in the 1960s, but this attribution remains debatable. There is no universally-accepted creator.
External SWOT indicators
- External funding – e.g. legislature, gifts, donations and other potential sources
- Industry trends – technological developments, new product lines and shifting consumer demands
- Economic movements – financial trends on a local, national and global scale
- Target demographic – evolution of audience i.e. age, race, gender and culture
- Working relationships – dealings with partners and suppliers
- Regulations – i.e. political, environmental and economic
Common Reasons for Using
- Identify new solutions to existing business issues
- Pinpoint new potential barriers to current business objectives
- Agree on the next direction for your business to take
- Discover possibilities and limitations for change
- As a means of brainstorming business ideas and better understanding the competition
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As a means of better informing key stakeholders
| Company Name | ||
| Business Planning Checklist | ||
| Using the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) analysis framework, develop a checklist of the key activities that need to be performed when preparing a formal business plan in the table, below. | ||
| Activity | Owner | Completion Date |
| Strengths: Define the company’s current mission statement. | ||
| Strengths: Identify market segments in which the company will participate by conducting primary and secondary market research. | ||
| Strengths: Identify the company’s value proposition and how it will differentiate itself within the marketplace. | ||
| Weaknesses: Identify any barriers to market entry (for example, capital requirements, technical barriers, patents, and process barriers) that the company needs to overcome. | ||
| Weaknesses: Identify any risks inherent to the organisation that need to be mitigated so that the company can realise the business plan. | ||
| Opportunities: Identify areas where the current market is underserved that provide an opportunity for the company. | ||
| Opportunities: Identify any key processes, intellectual capital, or other resources that the company can use to its advantage in the marketplace. | ||
| Threats: Identify primary competitors, and then analyse competitor performance by using all available data and additional data that can be verified. | ||
| Threats: Identify secondary and potential future competitors that might affect the business plan. | ||
| Threats: Develop strategies for mitigating primary and secondary competitive threats. | ||
| <Add additional key business plan activity.> | ||
| <Add additional key business plan activity.> | ||
| <Add additional key business plan activity.> | ||
| <Add additional key business plan activity.> | ||
Using a SWOT analysis is a powerful tool that is simple to use but effective in helping you understand your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. When you take time to understand the weakness and threats you are taking the first steps to actively manage and reduce threats. Don’t be caught off-guard because you never know when something unexpected might happen, business is volatile and risks can crop up when least expected.
Some information in this page is using the British Library webpage as a source
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