SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis is an important instrument for strategic planning and management. SWOT stands for:
Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Applied to the own enterprise, it examines chances and risks, resulting from the environment and combines them with business-internal strengths and relates them to weaknesses. The SWOT-analysis is a quite fast method to determine your entrepreneurial starting point. So, you can use it also for individual projects, for example the introduction of products. However, also long-term strategies can be derived, that should guarantee the future success of your business.
SWOT analyses are also generated about other companies, i.e. relevant competitors or also important suppliers.
Another possible application of this reflection from within and without could be the comparison of the own unit/enterprise relatively to the strongest competitor(s). In practice, the methods of Benchmarking are used on this occasion.
Possible fields of comparison for the judgment of business-specific strengthes and weaknesses are multiple.