Looking at assessing your competitive situation? SWOT analysis templates can assist you in understanding where your business is doing well, where it can improve, and which trends you need to get ahead of.

These templates examine four different factors to assess how competitive your business might be. A thorough SWOT analysis can provide you with a fact-based framework on which to base future business decisions.

You can use SWOT analysis to find the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business plans. It can also be used in strategic planning to assist the company in staying ahead of its competitors.

In this article, we’ll break down the importance of SWOT analyses as well as provide you with actionable steps in utilizing its appropriate templates.

SWOT Analysis Templates

What Does SWOT Stand For?

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The SWOT framework can provide a more comprehensive picture of your current situation and show you how to move forward. Let’s examine each of these phrases in more detail and see how they might be used to pinpoint problem areas.

Strengths

Your strengths are what set you apart from your competitors. It could include things like a strong brand, loyal clients, accurate balance sheets, innovative technology, and the list goes on. You can determine your internal strengths by assessing which internal and external factors are running successfully.

These factors can be applied to other areas that may require additional assistance.

Consider the following questions as you consider your organization’s strengths and weaknesses:

  • What is our competitive edge in the market?
  • What are our best assets?
  • Which products or services are doing well?
  • What distinguishes our company from others?
  • What aspects of our business appeal to our target audience?
  • Which features or categories outperform those of our rivals?

Weaknesses

Your company’s weaknesses are what prevent you from operating at your highest potential. This could be a weak brand, high amounts of company debt, higher-than-average turnover, lack of cash flow, or an inadequate supply chain.

To establish a foundation for success and failure, it is sensible to examine your company’s strengths before its weaknesses. Ask project managers the following questions to identify problem areas and how to improve a company’s shortcomings.

  • What can we do better?
  • Which products are performing poorly?
  • In which areas do we lack resources?
  • What tools might help us perform better?
  • How do we compare to our rivals?

Opportunities

Opportunities are outside variables that provide a company with a competitive advantage. These could range from areas that weren’t covered in the first two phases of your analysis to weaknesses that you’d like to strengthen.

Since there are numerous ways to generate opportunities, it’s helpful to consider these questions before you start:

  • What modern technology can we employ?
  • How can we grow our business?
  • What other segments can we test?
  • What tools can we employ to strengthen our weaknesses?
  • What can our marketing team do to improve our brand?
  • Do our services fill any gaps in the market?
  • What are the objectives for the company this year?
  • What services do our rivals provide?

Threats

Threats are possible trouble spots that could harm the company. However, they differ from weaknesses in that they are outside of your control. This could be anything from a global pandemic, escalating material costs, growing competition, or a shortage of workers.

You can discover potential threats by asking yourself the following questions:

  • What laws are being modified?
  • How are rivals acting?
  • Are there new emerging competitors?
  • What changes are there in consumer trends?
  • What modifications to the market are worrying?
  • What emerging market trends are there?
  • Where do our rivals do better than we do?

SWOT Analysis Examples

What Is a SWOT Analysis Template?

A SWOT analysis template is an orderly list that refers to the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis can be used for both personal and company purposes.

Although straightforward, a free SWOT analysis template, is an effective business tool, for assisting you in locating opportunities for improvement in the marketplace. It assists you in developing your team and company while staying on top of industry developments.

Existing organizations usually employ SWOT diagrams or analysis templates only when necessary. This allows them to assess the dynamic business environment. However, for newly established organizations, a full SWOT analysis diagram or chart should be a crucial component of the planning process.

When Is SWOT Analysis Used?

Not every situation will require a thorough SWOT analysis. There are a few scenarios where a SWOT template will benefit the company. This includes broad overviews of circumstances or different scenarios for your company.

SWOT analysis is most helpful:

  • Prior to significant change, including larger change management strategies.
  • When you introduce a fresh business project or product line.
  • When you want to increase brand recognition.
  • If you want to find areas where you can grow and improve.
  • Whenever you want a thorough analysis of your company’s performance.

SWOT assessments are general for a reason—so they may be implemented in any scenario, project, or business.

Why Is SWOT Analysis Important?

SWOT analysis can assist you in exposing unsafe assumptions and performance blind spots within your company. It provides fresh perspectives on where your company is right now and assists you in creating the ideal strategy for business decisions going forward.

You’ll have the knowledge you need to empower your business strategy and team for success by conducting a thorough analysis of the major areas surrounding different opportunities and risks.

It’s not just corporations that benefit from a SWOT analysis. You can assess aspects of your life, such as your leadership style and communication abilities, with the use of a very personal SWOT analysis template. These are the advantages of utilizing a simple SWOT analysis template under every circumstance.

Here are a few advantages of conducting a SWOT analysis:

  1. Identifying opportunities
    Finding development prospects is one of the main advantages of completing an analysis. It’s a productive place to start for new businesses and teams who are aware of their need for improvement but are unsure of where to begin.
    Opportunities can arise from a variety of sources. This could include internal reasons like streamlining team operations or broadening your product offerings for a competitive edge. In either case, seizing opportunities is a great way to develop as a team.
  2. Identifying potential improvement areas
    An improved corporate strategy may result from a SWOT analysis’s identification of weaknesses and threats.
    The best strategy for success, in the end, is to learn from your failures. After identifying areas for streamlining, you can design an action plan with your team. This will enable you to capitalize on your company’s advantages and employ what you know already works.
  3. Identifying potential risk areas
    Whether or not you have a risk register in place, it’s always important to find hazards before they become a problem. A SWOT analysis can assist you in keeping track of practical considerations that might affect how you decide whether to take a risk.
    Combining your own SWOT analysis along with a PEST analysis, which looks at external elements like political, economic, social, and technological ones, may be advantageous. Both may help you identify and prepare for project risks.

SWOT Chart Templates

Exclusive

How To Perform an Effective SWOT Analysis

Although every SWOT analysis is somewhat unique to each business, there is a simple procedure that can be used by everyone. For a typical SWOT analysis, all four steps must be completed, but the research and methods used to gather the data may differ.

The depth of each stage may differ. This depends on the age of your company, the level of competition in your market, and the opportunities available to your company. To perform a proper SWOT analysis, follow these three steps:

  1. Assemble the appropriate parties. When performing a SWOT analysis, you need to involve more people than just yourself. Your organization’s top decision-makers and leaders should participate in the exercise. Everyone currently associated with the business should be included.
  2. Gather ideas and SWOT analysis. The process of writing up each of the four points is carried out in the second stage. This should be done both individually and collectively by everyone.
  3. Review the data. Decide which elements should be included in each of the main points using all the information gathered throughout the brainstorming. After that, you can use the SWOT analysis template and strategically plan for future growth.

How To Write Good SWOT Analysis Example Templates

There are many techniques behind conducting a SWOT analysis. While some companies prefer the structure of a SWOT matrix, others enjoy brainstorming together on a whiteboard.

Regardless of how you decide to construct your SWOT analysis, being innovative in your planning approach encourages the flow of fresh concepts and allows for more original solutions.

We’ve put together 5 of the best tips for conducting an accurate SWOT analysis: 

Tip 1: Examine internal factors

Internal factors are often the main source of both strengths and weaknesses. Having more control over the outcome of these factors, usually make them a lot easier to solve.

By examining internal factors, you can begin implementing improvements in a few different ways. You can take action by: 

  • Creating a business plan for how to enhance your current situation by meeting with department stakeholders.
  • Applying any new solutions that can help you expedite these processes, such as a project management application.
  • Anything that can be changed in less than 24 hours should be done immediately. If you lack the capacity, consider assigning these tasks to capable employees.

The approach you choose to address both external and internal factors will vary depending on the problem. You might need to combine techniques or employ a more involved problem-solving procedure if it’s more complicated.

Tip 2: Examine external factors

External factors are usually made up of forces out of your control. Since you cannot directly influence the result, external factors affecting your business are more difficult to resolve. What you can do is alter your internal procedures to lessen harmful external influences. Instead of focusing on how these factors affect you, you can change how the entire company responds to these changes.

Consider the following scenario: You launch a new product that is quickly outperformed by a rival company’s new product. While you cannot remove their product from the market, you can remove any sales decrease by working quickly to introduce an even better product or marketing strategy.

Here are a few ways to address these problems: 

  • Compete against market trends.
  • Predict market movements before they occur.
  • Be on the lookout for external opportunities.
  • Increase flexibility to increase reaction time.
  • Utilize reporting tools to keep tabs on rivals and be instantly updated whenever anything changes.

Tip 3: Brainstorm new ideas

Developing fresh, original ideas can help to spark creativity and motivation. That said, you need to first encourage innovative ideas to generate them. That entails coming up with creative ways to think of opportunities.

To facilitate a high-impact brainstorming session, you should: 

  • Invite members of the team from other departments. This ensures that ideas from every division of the business are reflected.
  • Create a PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate a productive brainstorming session.
  • Be thoughtful when deciding how many team members to include. Too many people may distract from the task at hand or discourage participation. A brainstorming session that works best has about 10 participants.
  • Utilize several brainstorming strategies that are appropriate for different work types.
  • Clearly define your goals for the session.

Tip 4: Sort opportunities by importance

Listing the importance of different opportunities makes it easier to create actionable steps. You can either create a team or have smaller groups that categorize these opportunities from most to least important.

Teams should discuss each concept in detail and assign a score between one and ten. These scores can then outline each category’s capabilities, competencies, and overall impact.

Tip 5: Take action

The easy part is done – now it’s time to put all your efforts into action. After your SWOT analysis, you’ll have a list of prioritized opportunities. You can now use these opportunities as strengths.

Outline what needs to be done and how you plan to do it by using an organized approach. This could be a business planning swot template, project plan, swot diagram, or implementation plan.

SWOT Analysis Examples

One of the most common ways to create a SWOT analysis is through a SWOT matrix. This is a visual representation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The matrix is made up of four smaller squares that combine to form one larger square.

Using a SWOT matrix is a fast way to gather data, track problems, and make business decisions. Not only will it be helpful to reference later on, but it’s also a great way to visualize any patterns that arise.

A SWOT analysis chart can serve as an example of a SWOT matrix.

Your matrix can be a useful resource for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your organization when used correctly. Creating your own editable swot analysis template will increase productivity and make your life easier in the long run.

SWOT Analysis Alternatives

If you’re looking to dive deeper into particular aspects or areas of your team’s or company’s potential, it might be best to use an alternative analysis process. Four popular alternatives offer more specific results.

  1. SOAR analysis. Strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. For those who aren’t in favor of the SWOT templates, the SOAR analysis template comes in at a close second. It integrates information about the present state of an organization with the hopes and dreams of its members to create an inspiring vision for the future.
  2. SCORE analysis. Strengths, challenges, options, responses, and effectiveness. Many people prefer SCORE’s “challenges” point because it combines threats, weaknesses, and obstacles into one area while enhancing their potential as opportunities. Instead of only emphasizing the information from the study, the SCORE technique also focuses on steps you may take to advance.
  3. NOISE analysis. Needs, opportunities, improvements, strengths, and exceptions. Instead of focusing on your business’s shortcomings, the first point focuses on the things your business or team needs to succeed. This approach trains you to recognize potential growth instead of roadblocks.
  4. GAP analysis. Gap is the only framework on this list that is not an abbreviation. A gap analysis simply looks at where you’re at right now, where you want to be, and how you can close the gap between the two.

Conclusion

In closing, SWOT analysis templates are a constructive way of assessing your company’s competitive stance. By understanding the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business, you can expose the internal flaws and get ahead of market trends.

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Tagged:BusinessSwot Analysis
TemplateLab January 28th, 2024
Rita Akekelwa
Rita Akekelwa