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Be Careful with SWOT Analysis. Issues and Risks of SWOT
Bernhard Keim, Business Consultant, Germany, Premium Member
I am not that happy with SWOT Analysis. My issue does not concern the tool itself, but the way it is often used. People like to make some statements with it, but the list in each of its quadrants can be endless. Everything is true, but what does really matter from all the points listed? So be careful with cherry picking (giving selective attention to particular things) to draw conclusions from a SWOT-Analysis.
Here's an example of what I mean. Let's think about the situation of a horse shoe manufacturer 110 years ago:
- Strengths: how did it help you to be the best horse shoe manufacturer?
- Weaknesses: did it make a difference for your future, that your marketing was weak?
- Opportunities: there were a lot of competitors you could buy for little money.
- Thre...
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Risks of SWOT Analysis: Biases
Jaap de Jonge, CEO, Netherlands, Editor I agree Bernard. Giving selective attention to particular findings and then drawing conclusions based on that is indeed a dangerous tendency of human ... |
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How to Avoid Biases in SWOT Analysis
James Antwi, HR Consultant, Swaziland, Premium Member Quite often SWOT is used for generating a '' shop list'' of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. But indeed what to do with this sh... |
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Be Careful of SWOT Analysis
Dr. Alan Williams, Professor, Thailand, Member I insist that all my department managers attend every senior management meeting and also I insist that they all contribute to all discussions whether ... |
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Use Trends for External Analysis!
Johannes Crol, Consultant, Switzerland, Member I don't like opportunities and threats as implicitly they contain the strengths and weaknesses.
Instead, I use external TRENDS and confront these... |
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Use SWOT as a Starting Point
Charles Alter, Consultant, United States, Member I have successfully used SWOT analysis as a starting point for big picture strategic planning and small picture continuous improvement projects.
... |
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SWOT Analysis Using Collective Intelligence
Murali Sundararaju, Coach, India, Member Great comments by everyone and great learning.
I see many other versions being mentioned such as SOAR, SWOCC, etc.. While they are great and prov... |
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Avoid Strategies in SWOTs
Connie James, Professor, Member I agree if you anchor opportunities in industry trends and data (not firm-specific strategies), it will minimize the confirmation bias. Similarly by c... |
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Reduce Bias in SWOT
Connie James, Professor, Member The 1-2 page SWOTs we do, have ±50 citations that show the variety and quality of sources, forcing out individual opinions.
We then rate each bul... |
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Use SWOT in Combination with Other Tools
Trevor Hudson, Consultant, United Kingdom, Member In my view, for all the reasons outlined above, SWOT should absolutely not be used as a decision making tool. Instead it should be used in combination... |
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SWOT is a Summary Tool
Gregory McGuire, Business Consultant, Member I use SWOT Analysis as a summary tool. Merely using the tool to fill out the quadrants is a recipe for failure. It is a quick and dirty way to complet... |
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A SWOT Needs to Be Informed by Other Analysis
Huw Morris, Management Consultant, United Kingdom, Member I have seen very few insightful SWOT analyses. Those that were helpful were informed by other analysis - for example a Porter 5 Force analysis reinfor... |
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SWOT Analysis Provides Little Gain for Strategy
Bernhard Keim, Business Consultant, Germany, Premium Member SWOT Analysis just tells you what you should know anyhow. It is not strategic, but might deliver some insights. It does not tell you, what to do, but ... |
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Frankly, it Entertains a Lot!
Augusto Carreira, Partner, Portugal, Member I once worked as a Business Unit Director for a large multinational whose top management decided it would be a good thing to perform a SWOT analysis o... |
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SWOT Follow-up: Intersecting SW with OT
Pedro Ferrao, Teacher, Portugal, Member In order to find strategies and actions, you must intersect the internal components (SW) with the external analysis (OT).
For instance, if you ar... |
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Liked This SOAR
Sridhar Gopal, Management Consultant, India, Member @ Paul Bailey: I concur with the idea that the application of SWOT has been considerably diluted over a period of ti... |
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Uncertainty and SWOT
Eyad, Manager, Jordan, Member I have a similar point of view. I see that round table discussions including variety of industry relevant people, and having as much market intelligen... |
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SWOT is Just a First Step, Not the Final One
najib mohammed Saif, Turnaround Manager, Yemen, Member Thank you Mr Bernhard for your SWOT advice.
@All: Remember a SWOT analysis is not the final step, but it does give us some information about our ... |
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Combining SWOT with PESTLE
Pradeep Sinha, Management Consultant, India, Member I have found that SWOT combined with PESTLE gives a better perspective and is more comprehensive. Organization will be able to focus on company's cont... |
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GIGO & SWOT Analysis
Maurice Hogarth, Consultant, United Kingdom, Member Processes are designed for rational use. As long as those who use them have an emotional stake in the outcomes (as is often the case) then thinking ha... |
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Chander Shenoy
