when preparing a swot analysis several common mistakes can undermine its effectiveness let s take a look at some ways your swot analysis may go awry 
one easy error to make when preparing a swot analysis is failing to be objective and honest in the assessment companies often tend to overemphasize their strengths while downplaying weaknesses resulting in an overly optimistic and unrealistic analysis this bias can lead to missed opportunities for improvement and leave the organization vulnerable to unforeseen threats as difficult as it may be to be honest in your analysis the validity of underlying assumptions is the cornerstone of how useful the swot analysis will be another significant mistake is conducting the analysis in isolation without input from diverse key stakeholders you should try get to input from employees at various levels customers suppliers and industry experts each may have a unique view of your company and each may come up with different items to be listed in each quadrant based on how they specifically interact with the company yet another common pitfall is neglecting to prioritize or weight the factors identified in the swot analysis not all strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats are equally important or impactful failing to distinguish between major and minor factors can lead to misallocation of resources and misguided strategic decisions it can be easy for the important items to be buried if too many non material items are identified another frequent error is treating the swot analysis as a one time exercise you should be prepared to do a swot analysis periodically the business environment is constantly changing and a swot analysis should be regularly updated to remain relevant in addition the analysis itself is just the beginning its true value lies in using the findings to develop and implement strategic actions you can then check future swot analysis to make sure the company is addressing the major points benefits of swot analysisa swot analysis won t solve every major question a company has however there s a number of benefits to a swot analysis that make strategic decision making easier swot analysis examplelet s perform a swot analysis together by analyzing the strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats of tesla 