Score Your SWOT: Turn Weaknesses and Threats into Strategy
In a SWOT analysis, strengths and weaknesses are internal factors of your business, but opportunities and threats are ambient factors on which you usually do not have any control and cannot change. You need to make the best of ambient opportunities as much as possible and overcome the threats using your strengths.
One of the points I always mention is that you need to look at your facts in the mirror. If you do not see your facts and weaknesses, these issues get you into big trouble more than 90% of the time. Some of these troubles may even make you close down your business. Instead of landing in hot water later on, think about it while crafting the business plan.
You know your weaknesses, and the market threats have been obtained from research, investigation and analysis. Now is the time to find the solution to tackle these weaknesses and threats. According to the market opportunities, see what solutions you have to get rid of your weaknesses. You need to turn the threats into opportunities, and in this section you find out how to do it according to various analyses.
One of the threats may be that a new technology enters the market. This new technology affects your work on many levels, or you presently purchase some pieces of machinery which become obsolete in the next five years due to this technology, and you will have to buy new ones.
Assess the general economic status of the country and whatever is pertinent to the economy where your business is located. Check the currency's status. Are economic factors an opportunity or a threat for you? Other important items in your research include the laws of where your business is located and the issue of technology in your targeted business.
You can use assessment forms to evaluate and score each item. This will give you ideas of what will work and what will not. For example, the current industry status is scored as 90 points out of 100, or the economic status is scored as 50 points out of 100. The sum of the scores you consider in your assessments shows the final status of your evaluation and turns into a criterion for the decisions that follow.
In addition to providing you with full and coherent knowledge, writing down the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats can be a basis for formulating your strategies.