Video Transcript: How to Perform a SWOT Analysis

Hi, I'm Erica Olson, Today's whiteboard session is on putting together a SWOT  analysis for your organization. SWOT simply stands for strengths, weaknesses,  opportunities and threats. And the purpose of a SWOT analysis is to create a  synthesized view of your current state in great planning, whether it's strategic  planning, marketing planning, operational planning, you name it, great planning  starts with an understanding of where you are today, confronting the brutal facts, as Jim Collins says, so you can build a future. And a SWOT analysis is a great  way to capture and frame up what your current state is. So I'm going to talk to  you about what it is in a little more detail, how to put it together, and then quickly, how to put it to use. Let's jump in strengths. We build on our strengths,  weaknesses. We shore them up. The right hand side of your two by two matrix,  which is your SWOT, is your internal perspective. On the other side, we have  our opportunities, which we invest or capitalize in, and our threats, which we  monitor. External perspective. Tip number one, do not confuse your internal and  external perspective. We're looking for a holistic view of your organization, and  it's important to be really clear about what we can impact and directly influence  internal and what we can influence but not directly impact external. And I'll talk  more about that in just a minute. So this is a structure for your SWOT. When  you're done with it, you'll have maybe 10 to 15 bullet points in each of the four  quadrants. So how do you figure out what goes in those quadrants? The simple  thing to do is to hop into a room with a whiteboard and brainstorm with your  planning team and fill out your SWOT taking it to the next level is bringing data  into your SWOT analysis. There's tons of data in organizations, absolutely go  pull in some data so you have more of a data based view of what's going on.  Let's talk about those data sources, internal get perspective from executive  board, if you have them, partners, vendors, gather that through one on one  interviews. Employees. Employee perspective is super important to help  understand what's working and what's not working. Customers, same thing. You  cannot have a great SWOT analysis without understanding what your customers are saying about what you're doing well and what you're not doing well. And last  but certainly not least, pull in some of your key performance indicators, or, very  simply, your current performance over the last year, three years, five years,  whatever makes the most sense. If you're a little pressed for time, make sure  you pull in your employee perspective and your customer perspective on the  external side, same thing. What are your information sources? I like to think  about external data, kind of in concentric circles, starting from the outside, mega trends. Those are those really big things that are impacting most all  organizations across our country or potentially across the globe, aging baby  boomers, growth of millennials, that type of thing, industry. So your industry has  tons of information. There's tons of information from industry. Associations and  industries have all kinds of trends that impact organizations. So check out your  industry association for reports on potential opportunities, threats and trends in 

your area coming in a little bit closer your market. The market comes in two  flavors, your geographic market that you serve, or your target markets that  you're serving. Data Sources include your economic development organization  for current market information, and then Census Bureau for target market type  information competitors. Everybody has competitors. Understand what your top  three competitors are doing. Super important to have a holistic view of your  external perspective. Same thing if you're pressed for time, make sure you get  industry information and make sure you bring in competitive information into  your SWOT. If you have a little bit of budget, you can buy reports that will make  this that much richer and that much more data based if you don't go with the  ideas that I already shared with you, great. So you have all this information,  what do you do with it? Synthesize it into 10 to 15 themes, like I mentioned  before, group them up. Sub bullet, point them. That type of thing, such that you  have a pretty well rounded SWOT. It's nice for it to fit on one page. Like I said,  you want to be able to see your current state one page, 11 point font, not seven  so so dial it down. There's always more weaknesses than there are threats. So  take that as a rule of thumb, but not doesn't have to be perfect. Here's Tip  number two, do not confuse weaknesses and opportunities. And this happens all the time, and when that happens, your SWOT falls apart. Let me explain why  with an example. One theme that might come out of your work is improving  communications. Improving communications. And sounds like an opportunity,  right? But it's not because our external perspective is things we can influence  but don't directly control, and we control communication. It's more like a  weakness, but it's not phrased like a weakness, so it needs to live in this  quadrant. And if you have a lot of things like that, you might consider renaming  this quadrant areas of improvement. And if you do that, then just make sure that  all the bullet points in this area are phrased that same way improved  communications. If you want to keep it as weakness, change it to lack of  communication, and then you have a statement that sounds like a weakness. So why is this important when you process out your SWOT, and we have a whole  video on that, so go check that out. But really quickly, when you process out  your SWOT, you're going to want to start with opportunities. And this is your  growth area. Planning about growth. If you have stuff in here that isn't about  growth, the SWOT doesn't work. So opportunities or growth goals, that's what  you do with those. threats. Most of the time you don't turn into goals. You merely watch them, maybe an initiative or two. But most of the time, you're watching  them under, over weaknesses, these are going to turn into your operational and  people, goals and initiatives and last, but certainly not least, your strengths are a source of your competitive advantage or a starting point to identify them. We  have a whole video on that, so check that out to identify your competitive  advantages. Last tip, whatever you do, do not go through the exercise of putting  your SWOT together and then not use it. We see that all of the time. Great 

planning starts with understanding where you are today. This is how you do that. Make sure you use it to build out your goals and your competitive advantages.  That's all we have for today. Thanks for tuning in. Check out our channel. Happy strategizing.