A: Start with strengths (find out how below)
By Garry Hojan
Okay, so we’re talking about a SWOT analysis here. For those unfamiliar, a SWOT analysis evaluates your company’s competitive position in the market and is foundational for developing your strategic plan.
Strengths and weaknesses data come from internal sources and address those two topics related to your company.
Opportunities and threats data are external forces that may have uncontrollable impacts on decisions. Your SWOT may be a broad-brush exercise (where do we stand) or it may be used for specific decision making (a product or service offering).
It would be difficult to cover all four characteristics of a SWOT analysis in one newsletter article, so I will break it up to keep each article reasonable in length.
Let’s get started.
Step 1—Set your SWOT objective. What are you analyzing? Is it the whole company and your general position, or are you analyzing different services or products you offer to see how those compare against each other and the market?
A SWOT analysis can also be performed on a division, an industry, or a competitor. Because of the broad applications, it’s important to be clear in your objective for the team.
Step 2 – Get your team together. This should be as diverse as possible. Also, don’t limit your team to just those within the company or just management. Include all stakeholders, like a team member from each department’s front line, customers, suppliers, community, and government agencies. If it’s just you, it’s even more important to try and diversify your input with external team members to address blind spots.
The four areas of SWOT analysis focus on internal and external data, so having a diverse team of internal and external team members will give you a full, true, and more valuable picture of your company’s place in the market, setting up for a good analysis and strategic foundation.
Step 3 – What are your strengths? Really zero in on what really makes you different from your competition.
I can pretty much guarantee that if I polled 10 HVAC companies in a city and asked them what their strength is, most would say “our level of customer service.” Okay, if they all say their level of customer service is their main strength, then what is the competitive edge of one over the other? If there isn’t one, there is no reason for a customer to choose one, as any HVAC company will do, since they all have exemplary customer service.
The point here is to get value from this SWOT exercise, so you need to go beyond doing it for the sake of just going through the motions. Recognize things like when you’re saying the same things your competitors are saying, and do it to understand how to move your company from being the same as everyone else into a unique and leading position.
Need help setting your strategic foundation? Let’s chat.
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You can email me at ghojan@jhaero.com or call my cell at 208-627-2565.
