SWOT-Analysis

SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats and its a structure planning method for accessing SWOT. It is a 2x2 matrix that is helpful for finding the factors that are helpful and harmful for your business.

Strength:
          It is internal and we could control this. This is Positive.
          Example: what are you good at?, your Uniqueness?, your advantage, my personal qualities?, etcs..,
Weakness:
         It is also internal and we could control this also. This is Negative.
         Example: What are you bad at?, your disadvantage?,
Opportunities:
         It is external and we could not control this. This is Positive.
         Example: Getting partnerships, funds, etcs.,
Threats:
        It is also external and we could not control this. This is Negative.
        Example: new legislation passing, tax increasing, etc.,


Use:

• This is the most useful and using tools for internal and external analysis of your organization. 
• strategy building for your organization
• Matching, to find competitive advantage by matching the strengths to opportunities
• converting our threats/weakness into opportunities and weakness by conversion strategy.

How to use:

• Download the template from the internet.
• Sit with your team if you are doing for your organization or sit alone without any disturbance if it is personal one.
• Brainstorm at the strength and weaknesses.
• Brainstorm at the Threat and opportunities.
• Brainstorm how to make use of  strength and opportunity and how to get out of weakness and threats.
• Build Strategy, Plan and execute.

Environmental analysis tool:- PESTLE

PESTLE stands for "Political, Economical, Socio Cultural, Technology, Legal and Environmental". It is an Environmental analysis tool that assess the external factors which might have influence our organization. It helps to find out the changes in the organization environment and to sort out the opportunities and threats that will be created because of the changes.

Uses:

• Strategic tool for understanding market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations.
• Helps to spot business/ personal opportunities and threats.
• It helps to avoid starting projects that might fail.
• It shows the direction of change in the business environment.

How to use this:

• Brainstorm what are all the changes that might happen on the factors. Question a lot and prompt yourself.! If needed, ask experts.
• Brainstorm and sort out opportunities and threats arising from the changes
• Think how we could make use of the opportunity and  how to tackle the threats.
• Plan and Take action.!

There are number of questions to ask and factors to consider in each factors. For instance, political factor to consider like next state and national election, views on business policy, corporate social responsibility, etc.,

There are many online templates for this PESTLE tool, Please download and fill it up and you can make your own also. Please Google for more factors to consider and for the template.

Note:
It would be useful if you do SWOT before doing PESTLE.

Next Post:
SWOT tool and the difference between SWOT and PESTLE.

Sources:
1. www.mindtools.com
2. www.wikipedia.com