what happens outside of the company is equally as important to the success of a company as internal factors external influences such as monetary policies market changes and access to suppliers are categories to pull from to create a list of opportunities and weaknesses 1
potential questions to list external factors are companies may consider performing this step as a white boarding or sticky note session the idea is there is no right or wrong answer all participants should be encouraged to share whatever thoughts they have these ideas can later be discarded in the meantime the goal should be to come up with as many items as possible to invoke creativity and inspiration in others with the list of ideas within each category it is now time to clean up the ideas by refining the thoughts that everyone had a company can focus on only the best ideas or largest risks to the company this stage may require substantial debate among analysis participants including bringing in upper management to help rank priorities armed with the ranked list of strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats it is time to convert the swot analysis into a strategic plan members of the analysis team take the bulleted list of items within each category and create a synthesized plan that provides guidance on the original objective for example the company debating whether to release a new product may have identified that it is the market leader for its existing product and there is the opportunity to expand to new markets however increased material costs strained distribution lines the need for additional staff and unpredictable product demand may outweigh the strengths and opportunities the analysis team develops the strategy to revisit the decision in six months in hopes of costs declining and market demand becoming more transparent use a swot analysis to identify challenges affecting your business and opportunities that can enhance it however note that it is one of many techniques not a prescription common mistakes when preparing swot analysis