Example Of A Swot Analysis Essay

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a planning tool used to understand the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business. It involves specifying the objective of the business or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are supportive or unfavourable to achieving that objective.

SWOT is often used as part of a strategic planning process. SWOT or TOWS is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

There are several ways of graphically representing a SWOT analysis on a matrix or grid. Several versions of a SWOT analysis grid/ matrix are shown on this page – use the one which is best suited to your application and preferred style. While at first glance this (A SWOT

It requires a team effort.

The methodology (SWOT analysis) has the advantage of being used as a ‘quick and dirty’ tool or a comprehensive management tool, more importantly this is not a decision that has to be made in advanced as one can lead to the other. This flexibility is one of the factors that has contributed to its success, along with many believing it is light weight, due to their lack of its original purpose.

Definition of a SWOT Analysis

A process generates information that is helpful in matching an organization or group’s goals, programs, and capacities to the social environment in which it operates. Note that in itself is only a data capture – the analysis follows.

Strengths

Positive tangible and intangible attributes, internal to an organization. They are within the organization’s

Background & History of the SWOT Analysis

The origins of the SWOT analysis technique is credited by Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from many top companies. The goal was to identify why corporate planning failed. The resulting research identified a number of key areas and the tool used to explore each of the critical areas was called SOFT analysis. Humphrey and the original research team used the categories “What is good in the present is Satisfactory, good in the future is an Opportunity; bad in the present is a Fault and bad in the future is a Threat.”

In 1964 Urick and Orr at a conference changed the F to a W, and it has stuck as that, soFt to sWot

Myth of the history of SWOT – Learned, Christensen, Andrews and Guth

Some researchers reference the 1965 publication “Business Policy, Text and Cases” by Learned, Christensen, Andrews and Guth (from Harvard University) in which a framework is used which closely resembles a SWOT analysis, however these words are not used and certainly the framework is not described as succinctly as we know it today. In this book the terms used