The next step is a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is merely a guide for organizing one’s thinking about a company and the environment in which it operates. In conducting a SWOT analysis, your company’s senior management will be examining the firm’s external and internal environment. External considerations might include customer attitudes, competition, technology, and economic conditions; the internal environment might encompass employees’ skills, abilities, and knowledge, product and service offerings, and support services.
After this analysis, senior management will ask some serious questions. Do we have the resources and capabilities to take advantage of the opportunities in the external environment and neutralize the threats we have identified? How many competitors have the same strengths and management competencies as we? Does our company lack a particular resource or capability that we can’t afford to acquire? On the other hand, if we have this resource or capability, can we make something of it to grow the business? Answers will enable top management to come up with workable strategies.