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How to Conduct an Industry Analysis? Steps, Template, Examples

Appinio Research · 16.11.2023 · 39min read

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of Industry Analysis, equipping yourself with the knowledge to navigate markets and make informed strategic decisions? Dive into this guide, where we unravel the significance, objectives, and methods of Industry Analysis.

Whether you're an entrepreneur seeking growth opportunities or a seasoned executive navigating industry shifts, this guide will be your compass in understanding the ever-evolving business terrain.

What is Industry Analysis?

Industry analysis is the process of examining and evaluating the dynamics, trends, and competitive forces within a specific industry or market sector. It involves a comprehensive assessment of the factors that impact the performance and prospects of businesses operating within that industry. Industry analysis serves as a vital tool for businesses and decision-makers to gain a deep understanding of the environment in which they operate.

Key components of industry analysis include:

• Market Size and Growth: Determining the overall size of the market, including factors such as revenue, sales volume, and customer base. Analyzing historical and projected growth rates provides insights into market trends and opportunities.
• Competitive Landscape: Identifying and analyzing competitors within the industry. This includes assessing their market share, strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. Understanding the competitive landscape helps businesses position themselves effectively.
• Customer Behavior and Preferences: Examining consumer behavior , preferences, and purchasing patterns within the industry. This information aids in tailoring products or services to meet customer needs.
• Regulatory and Legal Environment: Assessing the impact of government regulations, policies, and legal requirements on industry operations. Compliance and adaptation to these factors are crucial for business success.
• Technological Trends: Exploring technological advancements and innovations that affect the industry. Staying up-to-date with technology trends can be essential for competitiveness and growth.
• Economic Factors: Considering economic conditions, such as inflation rates, interest rates, and economic cycles, that influence the industry's performance.
• Social and Cultural Trends: Examining societal and cultural shifts, including changing consumer values and lifestyle trends that can impact demand and preferences.
• Environmental and Sustainability Factors: Evaluating environmental concerns and sustainability issues that affect the industry. Industries are increasingly required to address environmental responsibility.
• Supplier and Distribution Networks: Analyzing the availability of suppliers, distribution channels, and supply chain complexities within the industry.
• Risk Factors: Identifying potential risks and uncertainties that could affect industry stability and profitability.

Objectives of Industry Analysis

Industry analysis serves several critical objectives for businesses and decision-makers:

• Understanding Market Dynamics: The primary objective is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the industry's dynamics, including its size, growth prospects, and competitive landscape. This knowledge forms the basis for strategic planning.
• Identifying Growth Opportunities: Industry analysis helps identify growth opportunities within the market. This includes recognizing emerging trends, niche markets, and underserved customer segments.
• Assessing Competitor Strategies: By examining competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and strategies, businesses can formulate effective competitive strategies. This involves positioning the company to capitalize on its strengths and exploit competitors' weaknesses.
• Risk Assessment and Mitigation: Identifying potential risks and vulnerabilities specific to the industry allows businesses to develop risk mitigation strategies and contingency plans. This proactive approach minimizes the impact of adverse events.
• Strategic Decision-Making: Industry analysis provides the data and insights necessary for informed strategic decision-making. It guides decisions related to market entry, product development, pricing strategies, and resource allocation.
• Resource Allocation: By understanding industry dynamics, businesses can allocate resources efficiently. This includes optimizing marketing budgets, supply chain investments, and talent recruitment efforts.
• Innovation and Adaptation: Staying updated on technological trends and shifts in customer preferences enables businesses to innovate and adapt their offerings effectively.

Importance of Industry Analysis in Business

Industry analysis holds immense importance in the business world for several reasons:

• Strategic Planning: It forms the foundation for strategic planning by providing a comprehensive view of the industry's landscape. Businesses can align their goals, objectives, and strategies with industry trends and opportunities.
• Risk Management: Identifying and assessing industry-specific risks allows businesses to manage and mitigate potential threats proactively. This reduces the likelihood of unexpected disruptions.
• Competitive Advantage: In-depth industry analysis helps businesses identify opportunities for gaining a competitive advantage. This could involve product differentiation, cost leadership, or niche market targeting .
• Resource Optimization: Efficient allocation of resources, both financial and human, is possible when businesses have a clear understanding of industry dynamics. It prevents wastage and enhances resource utilization.
• Informed Investment: Industry analysis assists investors in making informed decisions about allocating capital. It provides insights into the growth potential and risk profiles of specific industry sectors.
• Adaptation to Change: As industries evolve, businesses must adapt to changing market conditions. Industry analysis facilitates timely adaptation to new technologies, market shifts, and consumer preferences .
• Market Entry and Expansion: For businesses looking to enter new markets or expand existing operations, industry analysis guides decision-making by evaluating the feasibility and opportunities in target markets.
• Regulatory Compliance: Understanding the regulatory environment is critical for compliance and risk avoidance. Industry analysis helps businesses stay compliant with relevant laws and regulations.

In summary, industry analysis is a fundamental process that empowers businesses to make informed decisions, stay competitive, and navigate the complexities of their respective markets. It is an invaluable tool for strategic planning and long-term success.

How to Prepare for Industry Analysis?

Let's start by going through the crucial preparatory steps for conducting a comprehensive industry analysis.

1. Data Collection and Research

• Primary Research: When embarking on an industry analysis, consider conducting primary research . This involves gathering data directly from industry sources, stakeholders, and potential customers. Methods may include surveys , interviews, focus groups , and observations. Primary research provides firsthand insights and can help validate secondary research findings.
• Secondary Research: Secondary research involves analyzing existing literature, reports, and publications related to your industry. Sources may include academic journals, industry-specific magazines, government publications, and market research reports. Secondary research provides a foundation of knowledge and can help identify gaps in information that require further investigation.
• Data Sources: Explore various data sources to collect valuable industry information. These sources may include industry-specific associations, government agencies, trade publications, and reputable market research firms. Make sure to cross-reference data from multiple sources to ensure accuracy and reliability.

2. Identifying Relevant Industry Metrics

Understanding and identifying the right industry metrics is essential for meaningful analysis. Here, we'll discuss key metrics that can provide valuable insights:

• Market Size: Determining the market's size, whether in terms of revenue, units sold, or customer base, is a fundamental metric. It offers a snapshot of the industry's scale and potential.
• Market Growth Rate: Assessing historical and projected growth rates is crucial for identifying trends and opportunities. Understanding how the market has evolved over time can guide strategic decisions.
• Market Share Analysis: Analyzing market share among industry players can help you identify dominant competitors and their respective positions. This metric also assists in gauging your own company's market presence.
• Market Segmentation : Segmenting the market based on demographics, geography, behavior, or other criteria can provide deeper insights. Understanding the specific needs and preferences of various market segments can inform targeted strategies.

3. Gathering Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is the cornerstone of effective industry analysis. To gather and utilize information about your competitors:

• Competitor Identification: Begin by creating a comprehensive list of your primary and potential competitors. Consider businesses that offer similar products or services within your target market. It's essential to cast a wide net to capture all relevant competitors.
• SWOT Analysis : Conduct a thorough SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis for each competitor. This analysis helps you identify their internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats they face.
• Market Share Analysis: Determine the market share held by each competitor and how it has evolved over time. Analyzing changes in market share can reveal shifts in competitive dynamics.
• Product and Pricing Analysis: Evaluate your competitors' product offerings and pricing strategies . Identify any unique features or innovations they offer and consider how your own products or services compare.
• Marketing and Branding Strategies: Examine the marketing and branding strategies employed by competitors. This includes their messaging, advertising channels, and customer engagement tactics. Assess how your marketing efforts stack up.

Industry Analysis Frameworks and Models

Now, let's explore essential frameworks and models commonly used in industry analysis, providing you with practical insights and examples to help you effectively apply these tools.

Porter's Five Forces Model

Porter's Five Forces is a powerful framework developed by Michael Porter to assess the competitive forces within an industry. This model helps you understand the industry's attractiveness and competitive dynamics.

It consists of five key forces:

• Threat of New Entrants: This force evaluates how easy or difficult it is for new companies to enter the industry. Factors that increase barriers to entry include high capital requirements, strong brand loyalty among existing players, and complex regulatory hurdles. For example, the airline industry has significant barriers to entry due to the need for large capital investments in aircraft, airport facilities, and regulatory approvals.
• Bargaining Power of Suppliers: This force examines the influence suppliers have on the industry's profitability. Powerful suppliers can demand higher prices or impose unfavorable terms. For instance, in the automotive industry, suppliers of critical components like microchips can wield significant bargaining power if they are few in number or if their products are highly specialized.
• Bargaining Power of Buyers: The bargaining power of buyers assesses how much influence customers have in negotiating prices and terms. In industries where buyers have many alternatives, such as the smartphone market, they can demand lower prices and better features, putting pressure on manufacturers to innovate and compete.
• Threat of Substitutes: This force considers the availability of substitute products or services that could potentially replace what the industry offers. For example, the rise of electric vehicles represents a significant threat to the traditional gasoline-powered automotive industry as consumers seek eco-friendly alternatives.
• Competitive Rivalry: Competitive rivalry assesses the intensity of competition among existing firms in the industry. A highly competitive industry, such as the smartphone market, often leads to price wars and aggressive marketing strategies as companies vie for market share.

Example: Let's consider the coffee shop industry . New entrants face relatively low barriers, as they can set up a small shop with limited capital. However, the bargaining power of suppliers, such as coffee bean producers, can vary depending on the region and the coffee's rarity. Bargaining power with buyers is moderate, as customers often have several coffee shops to choose from. Threats of substitutes may include energy drinks or homemade coffee, while competitive rivalry is high, with numerous coffee chains and independent cafes competing for customers.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis is a versatile tool used to assess an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. By conducting a SWOT analysis, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your industry and formulate effective strategies.

• Strengths: These are the internal attributes and capabilities that give your business a competitive advantage. For instance, if you're a tech company, having a talented and innovative team can be considered a strength.
• Weaknesses: Weaknesses are internal factors that hinder your business's performance. For example, a lack of financial resources or outdated technology can be weaknesses that need to be addressed.
• Opportunities: Opportunities are external factors that your business can capitalize on. This could be a growing market segment, emerging technologies, or changing consumer trends.
• Threats: Threats are external factors that can potentially harm your business. Examples of threats might include aggressive competition, economic downturns, or regulatory changes.

Example: Let's say you're analyzing the fast-food industry. Strengths could include a well-established brand, a wide menu variety, and efficient supply chain management. Weaknesses may involve a limited focus on healthy options and potential labor issues. Opportunities could include the growing trend toward healthier eating, while threats might encompass health-conscious consumer preferences and increased competition from delivery apps.

PESTEL Analysis

PESTEL Analysis examines the external macro-environmental factors that can impact your industry. The acronym stands for:

• Political: Political factors encompass government policies, stability, and regulations. For example, changes in tax laws or trade agreements can affect industries like international manufacturing.
• Economic: Economic factors include economic growth, inflation rates, and exchange rates. A fluctuating currency exchange rate can influence export-oriented industries like tourism.
• Social: Social factors encompass demographics, cultural trends, and social attitudes. An aging population can lead to increased demand for healthcare services and products.
• Technological: Technological factors involve advancements and innovations. Industries like telecommunications are highly influenced by technological developments, such as the rollout of 5G networks.
• Environmental: Environmental factors cover sustainability, climate change, and ecological concerns. Industries such as renewable energy are directly impacted by environmental regulations and consumer preferences.
• Legal: Legal factors encompass laws, regulations, and compliance requirements. The pharmaceutical industry, for instance, faces stringent regulatory oversight and patent protection laws.

Example: Consider the automobile manufacturing industry. Political factors may include government incentives for electric vehicles. Economic factors can involve fluctuations in fuel prices affecting consumer preferences for fuel-efficient cars. Social factors might encompass the growing interest in eco-friendly transportation options. Technological factors could relate to advancements in autonomous driving technology. Environmental factors may involve emissions regulations, while legal factors could pertain to safety standards and recalls.

Industry Life Cycle Analysis

Industry Life Cycle Analysis categorizes industries into various stages based on their growth and maturity. Understanding where your industry stands in its life cycle can help shape your strategies.

• Introduction: In the introduction stage, the industry is characterized by slow growth, limited competition, and a focus on product development. New players enter the market, and consumers become aware of the product or service. For instance, electric scooters were introduced as a new mode of transportation in recent years.
• Growth: The growth stage is marked by rapid market expansion, increased competition, and rising demand. Companies focus on gaining market share, and innovation is vital. The ride-sharing industry, exemplified by companies like Uber and Lyft, experienced significant growth in this stage.
• Maturity: In the maturity stage, the market stabilizes, and competition intensifies. Companies strive to maintain market share and differentiate themselves through branding and customer loyalty programs. The smartphone industry reached maturity with multiple established players.
• Decline: In the decline stage, the market saturates, and demand decreases. Companies must adapt or diversify to survive. The decline of traditional print media is a well-known example.

Example: Let's analyze the video streaming industry . The introduction stage saw the emergence of streaming services like Netflix. In the growth stage, more players entered the market, and the industry saw rapid expansion. The industry is currently in the maturity stage, with established platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ competing for market share. However, with continued innovation and changing consumer preferences, the decline stage may eventually follow.

Value Chain Analysis

Value Chain Analysis dissects a company's activities into primary and support activities to identify areas of competitive advantage. Primary activities directly contribute to creating and delivering a product or service, while support activities facilitate primary activities.

• Primary Activities: These activities include inbound logistics (receiving and storing materials), operations (manufacturing or service delivery), outbound logistics (distribution), marketing and sales, and customer service.
• Support Activities: Support activities include procurement (acquiring materials and resources), technology development (R&D and innovation), human resource management (recruitment and training), and infrastructure (administrative and support functions).

Example: Let's take the example of a smartphone manufacturer. Inbound logistics involve sourcing components, such as processors and displays. Operations include assembly and quality control. Outbound logistics cover shipping and distribution. Marketing and sales involve advertising and retail partnerships. Customer service handles warranty and support.

Procurement ensures a stable supply chain for components. Technology development focuses on research and development of new features. Human resource management includes hiring and training skilled engineers. Infrastructure supports the company's administrative functions.

By applying these frameworks and models effectively, you can better understand your industry, identify strategic opportunities and threats, and develop a solid foundation for informed decision-making.

Data Interpretation and Analysis

Once you have your data, it's time to start interpreting and analyzing the data you've collected during your industry analysis.

You can unlock the full potential of your data with Appinio 's comprehensive research platform. Beyond aiding in data collection, Appinio simplifies the intricate process of data interpretation and analysis. Our intuitive tools empower you to effortlessly transform raw data into actionable insights, giving you a competitive edge in understanding your industry.

Whether it's assessing market trends, evaluating the competitive landscape, or understanding customer behavior, Appinio offers a holistic solution to uncover valuable findings. With our platform, you can make informed decisions, strategize effectively, and stay ahead of industry shifts.

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1. Analyze Market Size and Growth

Analyzing the market's size and growth is essential for understanding its dynamics and potential. Here's how to conduct a robust analysis:

• Market Size Calculation: Determine the total market size in terms of revenue, units sold, or the number of customers. This figure serves as a baseline for evaluating the industry's scale.
• Historical Growth Analysis: Examine historical data to identify growth trends. This includes looking at past year-over-year growth rates and understanding the factors that influenced them.
• Projected Growth Assessment: Explore industry forecasts and projections to gain insights into the expected future growth of the market. Consider factors such as emerging technologies, changing consumer preferences, and economic conditions.
• Segmentation Analysis: If applicable, analyze market segmentation data to identify growth opportunities in specific market segments. Understand which segments are experiencing the most significant growth and why.

2. Assess Market Trends

Stay ahead of the curve by closely monitoring and assessing market trends. Here's how to effectively evaluate trends within your industry.

• Consumer Behavior Analysis: Dive into consumer behavior data to uncover shifts in preferences, buying patterns, and shopping habits. Understand how technological advancements and cultural changes influence consumer choices.
• Technological Advancements: Keep a keen eye on technological developments that impact your industry. Assess how innovations such as AI, IoT, blockchain, or automation are changing the competitive landscape.
• Regulatory Changes: Stay informed about regulatory shifts and their potential consequences for your industry. Regulations can significantly affect product development, manufacturing processes, and market entry strategies.
• Sustainability and Environmental Trends: Consider the growing importance of sustainability and environmental concerns. Evaluate how your industry is adapting to eco-friendly practices and how these trends affect consumer choices.

3. Evaluate Competitive Landscape

Understanding the competitive landscape is critical for positioning your business effectively. To perform a comprehensive evaluation:

• Competitive Positioning: Determine where your company stands in comparison to competitors. Identify your unique selling propositions and areas where you excel.
• Market Share Analysis: Continuously monitor market share among industry players. Identify trends in market share shifts and assess the strategies that lead to such changes.
• Competitive Advantages and Weaknesses: Analyze your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. Identify areas where you can capitalize on their weaknesses and where you need to fortify your own strengths.

4. Identify Key Success Factors

Recognizing and prioritizing key success factors is crucial for developing effective strategies. To identify and leverage these factors:

• Customer Satisfaction: Prioritize customer satisfaction as a critical success factor. Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal advocates and contribute to long-term success.
• Quality and Innovation: Focus on product or service quality and continuous innovation. Meeting and exceeding customer expectations can set your business apart from competitors.
• Cost Efficiency: Strive for cost efficiency in your operations. Identifying cost-saving opportunities can lead to improved profitability.
• Marketing and Branding Excellence: Invest in effective marketing and branding strategies to create a strong market presence. Building a recognizable brand can drive customer loyalty and growth.

5. Analyze Customer Behavior and Preferences

Understanding your target audience is central to success. Here's how to analyze customer behavior and preferences:

• Market Segmentation: Use market segmentation to categorize customers based on demographics, psychographics , and behavior. This allows for more personalized marketing and product/service offerings.
• Customer Surveys and Feedback: Gather customer feedback through surveys and feedback mechanisms. Understand their pain points, preferences, and expectations to tailor your offerings.
• Consumer Journey Mapping: Map the customer journey to identify touchpoints where you can improve engagement and satisfaction. Optimize the customer experience to build brand loyalty.

By delving deep into data interpretation and analysis, you can gain valuable insights into your industry, uncover growth opportunities, and refine your strategic approach.

How to Conduct Competitor Analysis?

Competitor analysis is a critical component of industry analysis as it provides valuable insights into your rivals, helping you identify opportunities, threats, and areas for improvement.

1. Identify Competitors

Identifying your competitors is the first step in conducting a thorough competitor analysis. Competitors can be classified into several categories:

• Direct Competitors: These are companies that offer similar products or services to the same target audience. They are your most immediate competitors and often compete directly with you for market share.
• Indirect Competitors: Indirect competitors offer products or services that are related but not identical to yours. They may target a slightly different customer segment or provide an alternative solution to the same problem.
• Potential Competitors: These companies could enter your market in the future. Identifying potential competitors early allows you to anticipate and prepare for new entrants.
• Substitute Products or Services: While not traditional competitors, substitute products or services can fulfill the same customer needs or desires. Understanding these alternatives is crucial to your competitive strategy.

2. Analyze Competitor Strengths and Weaknesses

Once you've identified your competitors, you need to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. This analysis helps you understand how to position your business effectively and identify areas where you can gain a competitive edge.

• Strengths: Consider what your competitors excel at. This could include factors such as brand recognition, innovative products, a large customer base, efficient operations, or strong financial resources.
• Weaknesses: Identify areas where your competitors may be lacking. Weaknesses could involve limited product offerings, poor customer service, outdated technology, or financial instability.

3. Competitive Positioning

Competitive positioning involves defining how you want your business to be perceived relative to your competitors. It's about finding a unique position in the market that sets you apart. Consider the following strategies:

• Cost Leadership: Strive to be the low-cost provider in your industry. This positioning appeals to price-conscious consumers.
• Differentiation: Focus on offering unique features or attributes that make your products or services stand out. This can justify premium pricing.
• Niche Market: Target a specific niche or segment of the market that may be underserved by larger competitors. Tailor your offerings to meet their unique needs.
• Innovation and Technology: Emphasize innovation and technology to position your business as a leader in product or service quality.
• Customer-Centric: Prioritize exceptional customer service and customer experience to build loyalty and a positive reputation.

4. Benchmarking and Gap Analysis

Benchmarking involves comparing your business's performance and practices with those of your competitors or industry leaders. Gap analysis helps identify areas where your business falls short and where improvements are needed.

• Performance Benchmarking: Compare key performance metrics, such as revenue, profitability, market share, and customer satisfaction, with those of your competitors. Identify areas where your performance lags behind or exceeds industry standards.
• Operational Benchmarking: Analyze your operational processes, supply chain, and cost structures compared to your competitors. Look for opportunities to streamline operations and reduce costs.
• Product or Service Benchmarking: Evaluate the features, quality, and pricing of your products or services relative to competitors. Identify gaps and areas for improvement.
• Marketing and Sales Benchmarking: Assess your marketing strategies, customer acquisition costs, and sales effectiveness compared to competitors. Determine whether your marketing efforts are performing at a competitive level.

Market Entry and Expansion Strategies

Market entry and expansion strategies are crucial for businesses looking to enter new markets or expand their presence within existing ones. These strategies can help you effectively target and penetrate your chosen markets.

Market Segmentation and Targeting

• Market Segmentation: Begin by segmenting your target market into distinct groups based on demographics , psychographics, behavior, or other relevant criteria. This helps you understand the diverse needs and preferences of different customer segments.
• Targeting: Once you've segmented the market, select specific target segments that align with your business goals and capabilities. Tailor your marketing and product/service offerings to appeal to these chosen segments.

Market Entry Modes

Selecting the proper market entry mode is crucial for a successful expansion strategy. Entry modes include:

• Exporting: Sell your products or services in international markets through exporting. This is a low-risk approach, but it may limit your market reach.
• Licensing and Franchising: License your brand, technology, or intellectual property to local partners or franchisees. This allows for rapid expansion while sharing the risk and control.
• Joint Ventures and Alliances: Partner with local companies through joint ventures or strategic alliances. This approach leverages local expertise and resources.
• Direct Investment: Establish a physical presence in the target market through subsidiaries, branches, or wholly-owned operations. This offers full control but comes with higher risk and investment.

Competitive Strategy Formulation

Your competitive strategy defines how you will compete effectively in the target market.

• Cost Leadership: Strive to offer products or services at lower prices than competitors while maintaining quality. This strategy appeals to price-sensitive consumers.
• Product Differentiation: Focus on offering unique and innovative products or services that stand out in the market. This strategy justifies premium pricing.
• Market Niche: Target a specific niche or segment within the market that is underserved or has particular needs. Tailor your offerings to meet the unique demands of this niche.
• Market Expansion : Expand your product or service offerings to capture a broader share of the market. This strategy involves diversifying your offerings to appeal to a broader audience.
• Global Expansion: Consider expanding internationally to tap into new markets and diversify your customer base. This strategy involves thorough market research and adaptation to local cultures and regulations.

International Expansion Considerations

If your expansion strategy involves international markets, there are several additional considerations to keep in mind.

• Market Research: Conduct in-depth market research to understand the target country's cultural, economic, and legal differences.
• Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with international trade regulations, customs, and import/export laws.
• Cultural Sensitivity: Adapt your marketing and business practices to align with the cultural norms and preferences of the target market.
• Localization: Consider adapting your products, services, and marketing materials to cater to local tastes and languages.
• Risk Assessment: Evaluate the political, economic, and legal risks associated with operating in the target country. Develop risk mitigation strategies.

By carefully analyzing your competitors and crafting effective market entry and expansion strategies, you can position your business for success in both domestic and international markets.

Risk Assessment and Mitigation

Risk assessment and mitigation are crucial aspects of industry analysis and strategic planning. Identifying potential risks, assessing vulnerabilities, and implementing effective risk management strategies are essential for business continuity and success.

1. Identify Industry Risks

• Market Risks: These risks pertain to factors such as changes in market demand, economic downturns, shifts in consumer preferences, and fluctuations in market prices. For example, the hospitality industry faced significant market risks during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in decreased travel and tourism .
• Regulatory and Compliance Risks: Regulatory changes, compliance requirements, and government policies can pose risks to businesses. Industries like healthcare are particularly susceptible to regulatory changes that impact operations and reimbursement.
• Technological Risks: Rapid technological advancements can disrupt industries and render existing products or services obsolete. Companies that fail to adapt to technological shifts may face obsolescence.
• Operational Risks: These risks encompass internal factors that can disrupt operations, such as supply chain disruptions, equipment failures, or cybersecurity breaches.
• Financial Risks: Financial risks include factors like liquidity issues, credit risk , and market volatility. Industries with high capital requirements, such as real estate development, are particularly vulnerable to financial risks.
• Competitive Risks: Intense competition and market saturation can pose challenges to businesses. Failing to respond to competitive threats can result in loss of market share.
• Global Risks: Industries with a worldwide presence face geopolitical risks, currency fluctuations, and international trade uncertainties. For instance, the automotive industry is susceptible to trade disputes affecting the supply chain.

2. Assess Business Vulnerabilities

• SWOT Analysis: Revisit your SWOT analysis to identify internal weaknesses and threats. Assess how these weaknesses may exacerbate industry risks.
• Financial Health: Evaluate your company's financial stability, debt levels, and cash flow. Identify vulnerabilities related to financial health that could hinder your ability to withstand industry-specific challenges.
• Operational Resilience: Assess the robustness of your operational processes and supply chain. Identify areas where disruptions could occur and develop mitigation strategies.
• Market Positioning: Analyze your competitive positioning and market share. Recognize vulnerabilities in your market position that could be exploited by competitors.
• Compliance and Regulatory Adherence: Ensure that your business complies with relevant regulations and standards. Identify vulnerabilities related to non-compliance or regulatory changes.

3. Risk Management Strategies

• Risk Avoidance: In some cases, the best strategy is to avoid high-risk ventures or markets altogether. This may involve refraining from entering certain markets or discontinuing products or services with excessive risk.
• Risk Reduction: Implement measures to reduce identified risks. For example, diversifying your product offerings or customer base can reduce dependence on a single revenue source.
• Risk Transfer: Transfer some risks through methods such as insurance or outsourcing. For instance, businesses can mitigate cybersecurity risks by purchasing cyber insurance.
• Risk Acceptance: In cases where risks cannot be entirely mitigated, it may be necessary to accept a certain level of risk and have contingency plans in place to address potential issues.
• Continuous Monitoring: Establish a system for continuous risk monitoring. Regularly assess the changing landscape and adjust risk management strategies accordingly.

4. Contingency Planning

Contingency planning involves developing strategies and action plans to respond effectively to unforeseen events or crises. It ensures that your business can maintain operations and minimize disruptions in the face of adverse circumstances. Key elements of contingency planning include:

• Risk Scenarios: Identify potential risk scenarios specific to your industry and business. These scenarios should encompass a range of possibilities, from minor disruptions to major crises.
• Response Teams: Establish response teams with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Ensure that team members are trained and ready to act in the event of a crisis.
• Communication Plans: Develop communication plans that outline how you will communicate with employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders during a crisis. Transparency and timely communication are critical.
• Resource Allocation: Determine how resources, including personnel, finances, and equipment, will be allocated in response to various scenarios.
• Testing and Simulation: Regularly conduct tests and simulations of your contingency plans to identify weaknesses and areas for improvement. Ensure your response teams are well-practiced and ready to execute the plans effectively.
• Documentation and Record Keeping: Maintain comprehensive documentation of contingency plans, response procedures, and communication protocols. This documentation should be easily accessible to relevant personnel.
• Review and Update: Continuously review and update your contingency plans to reflect changing industry dynamics and evolving risks. Regularly seek feedback from response teams to make improvements.

By identifying industry risks, assessing vulnerabilities, implementing risk management strategies, and developing robust contingency plans, your business can navigate the complexities of the industry landscape with greater resilience and preparedness.

Industry Analysis Template

When embarking on the journey of Industry Analysis, having a well-structured template is akin to having a reliable map for your exploration. It provides a systematic framework to ensure you cover all essential aspects of the analysis. Here's a breakdown of an industry analysis template with insights into each section.

Industry Overview

• Objective: Provide a broad perspective of the industry.
• Market Definition: Define the scope and boundaries of the industry, including its products, services, and target audience.
• Market Size and Growth: Present current market size, historical growth trends, and future projections.
• Key Players: Identify major competitors and their market share.
• Market Trends: Highlight significant trends impacting the industry.

Competitive Analysis

• Objective: Understand the competitive landscape within the industry.
• Competitor Identification: List direct and indirect competitors.
• Competitor Profiles: Provide detailed profiles of major competitors, including their strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market positioning.
• SWOT Analysis: Conduct a SWOT analysis for each major competitor.
• Market Share Analysis: Analyze market share distribution among competitors.

Market Analysis

• Objective: Explore the characteristics and dynamics of the market.
• Customer Segmentation: Define customer segments and their demographics, behavior, and preferences.
• Demand Analysis: Examine factors driving demand and customer buying behavior.
• Supply Chain Analysis: Map out the supply chain, identifying key suppliers and distribution channels.
• Regulatory Environment: Discuss relevant regulations, policies, and compliance requirements.

Technological Analysis

• Objective: Evaluate the technological landscape impacting the industry.
• Technological Trends: Identify emerging technologies and innovations relevant to the industry.
• Digital Transformation: Assess the level of digitalization within the industry and its impact on operations and customer engagement.
• Innovation Opportunities: Explore opportunities for leveraging technology to gain a competitive edge.

Financial Analysis

• Objective: Analyze the financial health of the industry and key players.
• Revenue and Profitability: Review industry-wide revenue trends and profitability ratios.
• Financial Stability: Assess financial stability by examining debt levels and cash flow.
• Investment Patterns: Analyze capital expenditure and investment trends within the industry.

Consumer Insights

• Objective: Understand consumer behavior and preferences.
• Consumer Surveys: Conduct surveys or gather data on consumer preferences, buying habits , and satisfaction levels.
• Market Perception: Gauge consumer perception of brands and products in the industry.
• Consumer Feedback: Collect and analyze customer feedback and reviews.

SWOT Analysis for Your Business

• Objective: Assess your own business within the industry context.
• Strengths: Identify internal strengths that give your business a competitive advantage.
• Weaknesses: Recognize internal weaknesses that may hinder your performance.
• Opportunities: Explore external opportunities that your business can capitalize on.
• Threats: Recognize external threats that may impact your business.

Conclusion and Recommendations

• Objective: Summarize key findings and provide actionable recommendations.
• Summary: Recap the most critical insights from the analysis.
• Recommendations: Offer strategic recommendations for your business based on the analysis.
• Future Outlook: Discuss potential future developments in the industry.

While this template provides a structured approach, adapt it to the specific needs and objectives of your Industry Analysis. It serves as your guide, helping you navigate through the complex landscape of your chosen industry, uncovering opportunities, and mitigating risks along the way.

Remember that the depth and complexity of your industry analysis may vary depending on your specific goals and the industry you are assessing. You can adapt this template to focus on the most relevant aspects and conduct thorough research to gather accurate data and insights. Additionally, consider using industry-specific data sources, reports, and expert opinions to enhance the quality of your analysis.

Industry Analysis Examples

To grasp the practical application of industry analysis, let's delve into a few diverse examples across different sectors. These real-world scenarios demonstrate how industry analysis can guide strategic decision-making.

Tech Industry - Smartphone Segment

Scenario: Imagine you are a product manager at a tech company planning to enter the smartphone market. Industry analysis reveals that the market is highly competitive, dominated by established players like Apple and Samsung.

Use of Industry Analysis:

• Competitive Landscape: Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, identifying areas where they excel (e.g., Apple's brand loyalty ) and where they might have vulnerabilities (e.g., consumer demand for more affordable options).
• Market Trends: Identify trends like the growing demand for sustainable technology and 5G connectivity, guiding product development and marketing strategies.
• Regulatory Factors: Consider regulatory factors related to intellectual property rights, patents, and international trade agreements that can impact market entry and operations.
• Outcome: Armed with insights from industry analysis, you decide to focus on innovation, emphasizing features like eco-friendliness and affordability. This niche approach helps your company gain a foothold in the competitive market.

Healthcare Industry - Telehealth Services

Scenario: You are a healthcare entrepreneur exploring opportunities in the telehealth sector, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Industry analysis is critical due to rapid market changes.

• Market Size and Growth: Evaluate the growing demand for telehealth services, driven by the need for remote healthcare during the pandemic and convenience factors.
• Regulatory Environment: Understand the evolving regulatory landscape, including changes in telemedicine reimbursement policies and licensing requirements.
• Technological Trends: Explore emerging technologies such as AI-powered diagnosis and remote monitoring that can enhance service offerings.
• Outcome: Industry analysis underscores the potential for telehealth growth. You adapt your business model to align with regulatory changes, invest in cutting-edge technology, and focus on patient-centric care, positioning your telehealth service for success.

Food Industry - Plant-Based Foods

Scenario: As a food industry entrepreneur , you are considering entering the plant-based foods market, driven by increasing consumer interest in health and sustainability.

• Market Trends: Analyze the trend toward plant-based diets and sustainability, reflecting changing consumer preferences.
• Competitive Landscape: Assess the competitive landscape, understanding that established companies and startups are vying for market share.
• Consumer Behavior: Study consumer behavior, recognizing that health-conscious consumers seek plant-based alternatives.
• Outcome: Informed by industry analysis, you launch a line of plant-based products emphasizing both health benefits and sustainability. Effective marketing and product quality gain traction among health-conscious consumers, making your brand a success in the plant-based food industry.

These examples illustrate how industry analysis can guide strategic decisions, whether entering competitive tech markets, navigating dynamic healthcare regulations, or capitalizing on shifting consumer preferences in the food industry. By applying industry analysis effectively, businesses can adapt, innovate, and thrive in their respective sectors.

Industry Analysis is the compass that helps businesses chart their course in the vast sea of markets. By understanding the industry's dynamics, risks, and opportunities, you gain a strategic advantage that can steer your business towards success. From identifying competitors to mitigating risks and formulating competitive strategies, this guide has equipped you with the tools and knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of the business world.

Remember, Industry Analysis is not a one-time task; it's an ongoing journey. Keep monitoring market trends, adapting to changes, and staying ahead of the curve. With a solid foundation in industry analysis, you're well-prepared to tackle challenges, seize opportunities, and make well-informed decisions that drive your business toward prosperity. So, set sail with confidence and let industry analysis be your guiding star on the path to success.

How to Conduct Industry Analysis in Minutes?

Introducing Appinio , the real-time market research platform that transforms how you conduct Industry Analysis. Imagine getting real-time consumer insights in minutes, putting the power of data-driven decision-making at your fingertips. With Appinio, you can:

• Gain insights swiftly: Say goodbye to lengthy research processes. Appinio delivers answers fast, ensuring you stay ahead in the competitive landscape.
• No research degree required: Our intuitive platform is designed for everyone. You don't need a PhD in research to harness its capabilities.
• Global reach, local insights: Define your target group precisely from over 1200 characteristics and access consumer data in over 90 countries.

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Time Series Analysis: Definition, Types, Techniques, Examples

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Interval Scale: Definition, Characteristics, Examples

SWOT Analysis: How To Do One [With Template & Examples]

Published: October 05, 2023

As your business grows, you need a roadmap to help navigate the obstacles, challenges, opportunities, and projects that come your way. Enter: the SWOT analysis.

This framework can help you develop a plan to determine your priorities, maximize opportunities, and minimize roadblocks as you scale your organization. Below, let’s go over exactly what a SWOT analysis is, a few SWOT analysis examples, and how to conduct one for your business.

When you’re done reading, you’ll have all the inspiration and tactical advice you need to tackle a SWOT analysis for your business.

What is a SWOT analysis? Importance of a SWOT Analysis How to Write a Good SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis Examples How to Act on a SWOT Analysis

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that puts your business in perspective using the following lenses: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Using a SWOT analysis helps you identify ways your business can improve and maximize opportunities, while simultaneously determining negative factors that might hinder your chances of success.

While it may seem simple on the surface, a SWOT analysis allows you to make unbiased evaluations on:

• Your business or brand.
• Market positioning.
• A new project or initiative.
• A specific campaign or channel.

Practically anything that requires strategic planning, internal or external, can have the SWOT framework applied to it, helping you avoid unnecessary errors down the road from lack of insight.

Free SWOT Analysis Template

A free SWOT analysis template, plus other helpful market research resources.

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Importance of a SWOT Analysis

You’ve noticed by now that SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The framework seems simple enough that you’d be tempted to forgo using it at all, relying instead on your intuition to take these things into account.

But you shouldn’t. Doing a SWOT analysis is important. Here’s why.

SWOT gives you the chance to worry and to dream.

A SWOT analysis is an important step in your strategic process because it gives you the opportunity to explore both the potential risks and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.  You’re giving yourself the space to dream, evaluate, and worry before taking action. Your insights then turn into assets as you create the roadmap for your initiative.

For instance, when you consider the weaknesses and threats that your business may face, you can address any concerns or challenges and strategize on how to mitigate those risks. At the same time, you can identify strengths and opportunities, which can inspire innovative ideas and help you dream big. Both are equally important. 

SWOT forces you to define your variables.

Instead of diving head first into planning and execution, you’re taking inventory of all your assets and roadblocks. This process will help you  develop strategies that leverage your strengths and opportunities while addressing and mitigating the impact of weaknesses and threats.

As a result, you'll gain a comprehensive understanding of your current situation and create a more specific and effective roadmap. Plus, a SWOT analysis is inherently proactive. That means you'll be better equipped to make informed decisions, allocate resources effectively, and set realistic goals. 

SWOT allows you to account for mitigating factors.

As you identify weaknesses and threats, you’re better able to account for them in your roadmap, improving your chances of success.

Moreover, accounting for mitigating factors allows you to allocate your resources wisely and make informed decisions that lead to sustainable growth. With a SWOT analysis as a guide, you can confidently face challenges and seize opportunities.

SWOT helps you keep a written record.

As your organization grows and changes, you’ll be able to strike things off your old SWOTs and make additions. You can look back at where you came from and look ahead at what’s to come.

In other words, SWOT analyses serve as a tangible history of your progress and provide a reference point for future decision-making. With each update, your SWOT analysis becomes a living document that guides your strategic thinking and helps you stay agile and adaptable in an ever-changing business landscape.

By maintaining this written record, you foster a culture of continuous improvement and empower your team to make data-driven decisions and stay aligned with your long-term vision.

Parts of a SWOT Analysis

Conducting a SWOT analysis will help you strategize effectively, unlock valuable insights, and make informed decisions. But what exactly does a SWOT analysis include?

Let’s explore each component: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Your strengths are the unique advantages and internal capabilities that give your company a competitive edge in the market. A strong brand reputation, innovative products or services, or exceptional customer service are just a few examples. By identifying and capitalizing on your strengths, you can foster customer loyalty and build a solid foundation for growth.

No business is flawless. Weaknesses are areas where you may face challenges or fall short of your potential. It could be outdated processes, skill gaps within the team, or inadequate resources. By acknowledging these weaknesses, you can establish targeted initiatives for improvement, upskill your team, adopt new technologies, and enhance your overall operational efficiency.

Opportunities are external factors that can contribute to your company's progress. These may include emerging markets, technological advancements, changes in consumer behavior, or gaps in the market that your company can fill. By seizing these opportunities, you can expand your market reach, diversify your product offerings, forge strategic partnerships, or even venture into untapped territories.

Threats are external factors that are beyond your control and pose challenges to your business. Increased competition, economic volatility, evolving regulatory landscapes, or even changing market trends are examples of threats. By proactively assessing and addressing them, you can develop contingency plans, adjust your strategies, and minimize their impact on your operations.

In a SWOT analysis, you’ll have to take both internal and external factors into account. We’ll cover those next.

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SWOT Analysis Internal and External Factors

A SWOT analysis typically has internal (i.e., within your organization) and external (i.e., outside your organization) factors at play. Here's a breakdown of each.

Internal Factors

Internal factors refer to the characteristics and resources within your organization that directly influence its operations and performance. These factors are completely within your organization's control, so they can be modified, improved, or capitalized upon.

In a SWOT analysis, strengths and weaknesses are categorized as internal factors. Let’s look at a few examples.

• Brand reputation
• Unique expertise
• Loyal customer base
• Talented workforce
• Efficient processes
• Proprietary technology
• Outdated technology
• Inadequate resources
• Poor financial health
• Inefficient processes
• Skill gaps within the team

External Factors

External factors are elements outside the organization's control that have an impact on its operations, market position, and success. These factors arise from the industry climate and the broader business environment. You typically have no control over external factors, but you can respond to them.

In a SWOT analysis, opportunities and threats are categorized as external factors. Let’s look at a few examples.

• Emerging markets
• Changing consumer trends
• Technological advancements
• Positive shifts in regulations
• New gaps in the market you could fill
• Intense competition
• Economic downturns
• Disruptive technologies
• Changing regulations
• Negative shifts in consumer behavior

Remember, a well-rounded SWOT analysis empowers you to capitalize on strengths, address weaknesses, seize opportunities, and navigate threats — all while making informed decisions for the future.

Now, let’s take a look at how you can write a good SWOT analysis for yourself or for stakeholders.

How do you write a good SWOT analysis?

There are several steps you’ll want to take when evaluating your business and conducting a strategic SWOT analysis.

1. Download HubSpot's SWOT Analysis Template.

There’s no need to start from scratch for your analysis. Instead, start by downloading a free, editable template from HubSpot. Feel free to use the model yourself, or create your own as it suits your needs.

3. Identify your objective.

Before you start writing things down, you’ll need to figure out what you’re evaluating with your SWOT analysis.

Be specific about what you want to analyze. Otherwise, your SWOT analysis may end up being too broad, and you’ll get analysis paralysis as you are making your evaluations.

If you’re creating a new social media program, you’ll want to conduct an analysis to inform your content creation strategy. If you’re launching a new product, you’ll want to understand its potential positioning in the space. If you’re considering a brand redesign, you’ll want to consider existing and future brand conceptions.

All of these are examples of good reasons to conduct a SWOT analysis. By identifying your objective, you’ll be able to tailor your evaluation to get more actionable insights.

4. Identify your strengths.

“Strengths” refers to what you are currently doing well. Think about the factors that are going in your favor as well as the things you offer that your competitors just can’t beat.

For example, let’s say you want to use a SWOT analysis to evaluate your new social media strategy.

If you’re looking at a new social media program, perhaps you want to evaluate how your brand is perceived by the public. Is it easily recognizable and well-known? Even if it’s not popular with a widespread group, is it well-received by a specific audience?

Next, think about your process: Is it effective or innovative? Is there good communication between marketing and sales?

Finally, evaluate your social media message, and in particular, how it differs from the rest of the industry. I’m willing to bet you can make a lengthy list of some major strengths of your social media strategy over your competitors, so try to dive into your strengths from there.

5. Identify your weaknesses.

In contrast to your strengths, what are the roadblocks hindering you from reaching your goals? What do your competitors offer that continues to be a thorn in your side?

This section isn’t about dwelling on negative aspects. Rather, it’s critical to foresee any potential obstacles that could mitigate your success.

When identifying weaknesses, consider what areas of your business are the least profitable, where you lack certain resources, or what costs you the most time and money. Take input from employees in different departments, as they’ll likely see weaknesses you hadn’t considered.

If you’re examining a new social media strategy, you might start by asking yourself these questions: First, if I were a consumer, what would prevent me from buying this product, or engaging with this business? What would make me click away from the screen?

Second, what do I foresee as the biggest hindrance to my employees’ productivity, or their ability to get the job done efficiently? What derails their social media efforts?

6. Consider your opportunities.

This is your chance to dream big. What are some opportunities for your social media strategy you hope, but don’t necessarily expect, to reach?

For instance, maybe you’re hoping your Facebook ads will attract a new, larger demographic. Maybe you’re hoping your YouTube video gets 10,000 views and increases sales by 10%.

Whatever the case, it’s important to include potential opportunities in your SWOT analysis. Ask yourself these questions:

• What technologies do I want my business to use to make it more effective?
• What new target audience do I want to reach?
• How can the business stand out more in the current industry?
• Is there something our customers complain about that we could fix?

The opportunities category goes hand-in-hand with the weaknesses category. Once you’ve made a list of weaknesses, it should be easy to create a list of potential opportunities that could arise if you eliminate your weaknesses.

7. Contemplate your threats.

It’s likely, especially if you’re prone to worry, you already have a good list of threats in your head.

If not, gather your employees and brainstorm. Start with these questions:

• What obstacles might prevent us from reaching our goals?
• What’s going on in the industry, or with our competitors, that might mitigate our success?
• Is there new technology out there that could conflict with our product?

Writing down your threats helps you evaluate them objectively.

For instance, maybe you list your threats in terms of least and most likely to occur and divide and conquer each. If one of your biggest threats is your competitor’s popular Instagram account, you could work with your marketing department to create content that showcases your product’s unique features.

SWOT Analysis Chart

Download a free SWOT analysis chart included in HubSpot’s free market research kit .

A SWOT analysis doesn’t have to be fancy. Our SWOT analysis chart provides a clear and structured framework for capturing and organizing your internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats. It's the perfect visual aid to make sense of the wealth of information gathered during your analysis.

(Plus, you can always customize and paste it into a document you plan to share with stakeholders.)

But remember: Filling out the SWOT chart is just one step in the process. Combine it with our entire market research kit , and you'll have all the tools necessary to help your organization navigate new opportunities and threats.

SWOT Analysis Examples

The template above helps get you started on your own SWOT analysis.

But, if you’re anything like me, it’s not enough to see a template. To fully understand a concept, you need to see how it plays out in the real world.

These SWOT examples are not exhaustive. However, they are a great starting point to inspire you as you do your own SWOT analysis.

Apple’s SWOT analysis

Here’s how we’d conduct a SWOT analysis on Apple.

First off, strengths. While Apple has many strengths, let’s identify the top three:

• Brand recognition.
• Innovative products.
• Ease of use.

Apple’s brand is undeniably strong, and its business is considered the most valuable in the world . Since it’s easily recognized, Apple can produce new products and almost ensure a certain degree of success by virtue of the brand name itself.

Apple’s highly innovative products are often at the forefront of the industry. One thing that sets Apple apart from the competition is its product inter-connectivity.

For instance, an Apple user can easily sync their iPhone and iPad together. They can access all of their photos, contacts, apps, and more no matter which device they are using.

Lastly, customers enjoy how easy it is to use Apple’s products. With a sleek and simple design, each product is developed so that most people can quickly learn how to use them.

Next, let’s look at three of Apple’s weaknesses.

• High prices
• Closed ecosystem
• Lack of experimentation

While the high prices don’t deter Apple’s middle- and upper-class customer base, they do hinder Apple’s ability to reach a lower-class demographic.

Apple also suffers from its own exclusivity. Apple controls all its services and products in-house, and while many customers become loyal brand advocates for this reason, it means all burdens fall on Apple employees.

Ultimately, Apple’s tight control over who distributes its products limits its market reach.

Lastly, Apple is held to a high standard when it comes to creating and distributing products. Apple’s brand carries a high level of prestige. That level of recognition inhibits Apple from taking risks and experimenting freely with new products that could fail.

Now, let’s take a look at opportunities for Apple.

It’s easy to recognize opportunities for improvement, once you consider Apple’s weaknesses. Here’s a list of three we came up with:

• Expand distribution options.
• Create new product lines.
• Technological advancement.

One of Apple’s biggest weaknesses is its distribution network, which, in the name of exclusivity, remains relatively small. If Apple expanded its network and enabled third-party businesses to sell its products, it could reach more people globally, while alleviating some of the stress currently put on in-house employees.

There are also plenty of opportunities for Apple to create new products. Apple could consider creating more affordable products to reach a larger demographic, or spreading out into new industries — Apple self-driving cars, perhaps?

Finally, Apple could continue advancing its products’ technology. Apple can take existing products and refine them, ensuring each product offers as many unique features as possible.

Finally, let’s look at threats to Apple.

Believe it or not, they do exist.

Here are three of Apple’s biggest threats:

• Tough competition.
• International issues.

Apple isn’t the only innovative tech company out there, and it continues to face tough competition from Samsung, Google, and other major forces. In fact, Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple did in Q1 of 2022 , shipping 17 million more units than Apple and holding 24% of the market share.

Many of Apple’s weaknesses hinder Apple’s ability to compete with the tech corporations that have more freedom to experiment, or that don’t operate in a closed ecosystem.

A second threat to Apple is lawsuits. Apple has faced plenty of lawsuits, particularly between Apple and Samsung . These lawsuits interfere with Apple’s reputable image and could steer some customers to purchase elsewhere.

Finally, Apple needs to improve its reach internationally. The company isn’t number one in China and doesn’t have a very positive relationship with the Chinese government. In India, which has one of the largest consumer markets in the world, Apple’s market share is low , and the company has trouble bringing stores to India’s market.

If Apple can’t compete globally the way Samsung or Google can, it risks falling behind in the industry.

Starbucks SWOT Analysis

Now that we’ve explored the nuances involved with a SWOT analysis, let’s fill out a SWOT template using Starbucks as an example.

Here’s how we’d fill out a SWOT template if we were Starbucks:

Download this Template for Free

Restaurant Small Business SWOT Analysis

Some small business marketers may have difficulty relating to the SWOTs of big brands like Apple and Starbucks. Here’s an example of how a dine-in Thai restaurant might visualize each element.

Small restaurants can lean into their culinary expertise and service skills to find opportunities for growth and brand awareness. A SWOT analysis can also help identify weaknesses that can be improved, such as menu variation and pricing.

While a restaurant might not be as worried about high-level lawsuits, a small business might be more concerned about competitors or disruptors that might enter the playing field.

Local Boutique SWOT Analysis

In another small business example, let’s take a look at a SWOT analysis for a local boutique.

This shop might be well known in its neighborhood, but it also might take time to build an online presence or get its products in an online store.

Because of this, some of its strengths and opportunities might relate to physical factors while weaknesses and threats might relate to online situations.

How to Act on a SWOT Analysis

After conducting a SWOT analysis, you may be asking yourself: What’s next?

Putting together a SWOT analysis is only one step. Executing the findings identified by the analysis is just as important — if not more.

Put your insights into action using the following steps.

Take advantage of your strengths.

Use your strengths to pursue opportunities from your analysis.

For example, if we look at the local boutique example above, the strength of having affordable prices can be a value proposition. You can emphasize your affordable prices on social media or launch an online store.

Address your weaknesses.

Back to the boutique example, one of its weaknesses is having a poor social media presence. To mitigate this, the boutique could hire a social media consultant to improve its strategy. They may even tap into the expertise of a social-savvy employee.

Make note of the threats.

Threats are often external factors that can’t be controlled, so it’s best to monitor the threats outlined in your SWOT analysis to be aware of their impacts on your business.

When to Use a SWOT Analysis

While the examples above focus on business strategy in general, you can also use a SWOT analysis to evaluate and predict how a singular product will play out in the market.

Ultimately, a SWOT analysis can measure and tackle both big and small challenges, from deciding whether or not to launch a new product to refining your social media strategy.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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• Site Building
• Quick Reads
• About Academy
• Perspectives
• Using Your SWOT Analysis to Drive Your Market Research

• Introduction to Market Research: What It Is and Why You Need It
• Introduction to Market Research: When and How to Start
• Conducting a Situation Analysis: The SWOT Analysis
• Conducting Competitor Research 
• Resource List for Secondary Market Research
• Conducting Primary Market Research
• Creating a Killer Market Research Survey
• Using In-Depth Interviews and Focus Groups for Your Market Research
• Best Practices for Moderating and Analyzing Interviews and Focus Groups
• Conducting Observational Research for Your Business

Now that you’ve already done the intensive work of conducting a SWO T analysis with your team—assessing your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats—you’ve probably got a lot of material to work with. Your SWOT analysis should give you a clear, comprehensive sense of your business’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the external factors that represent possible opportunities and threats to your organization. Now what do you do with all this information? How does your SWOT analysis is inform the next market research campaign you take on?

Analyzing Your SWOT Results

As you fleshed out the four categories in your SWOT matrix, you probably began to recognize relationships between the items in its quadrants. Here are some questions worth asking yourself (and your team) to clarify the ways these four categories inform each other:

• How can we act on our company’s strengths to maximize the business opportunities we identified?
• How can we use the strengths we identified to combat or reduce the threats we described?
• How can we overcome or minimize the weaknesses we identified so we can better use the opportunities we found?
• How can we overcome or minimize the weaknesses we identified to avoid the threats we listed?
• Will taking advantage of the opportunities we listed ultimately neutralize any of our threats ?
• Can any of our strengths correct any of our weaknesses ?

Your initial answers to these questions don’t have to be complex, or even fully fleshed out (leave that to your market research). For now, you only need to recognize what you can utilize and draw on, and what needs to be minimized or avoided, in order for your business to be even more successful.

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’re in a position to prioritize which of these matters to tackle first in your market research. What you decide to prioritize will likely be based on some combination of:

1) the likelihood of it happening: you’re focusing on capitalizing on an opportunity or minimizing a threat

2) the feasibility of implementation: you’re focusing on utilizing a strength

3) a possible increase in profits: you discovered a viable solution

Translating a SWOT Analysis into Market Research Questions

For example, let’s look at a fictitious Japanese restaurant located in a seaside tourist town which used its SWOT analysis to inform its market research strategies. Naturally, your SWOT matrix will look different from the one below, but hopefully it will serve as a model for what it can look like when the results of a situation analysis are narrowed down, prioritized, and translated into a set of actionable questions you can use to research more.

SWOT Example

Note we didn’t include specific numbers here (e.g., the amount allocated for their advertising budget or the price differentiation from the competition) because we didn’t need them for this example. As you conduct your own SWOT analysis, you’ll want to include those details.

Now, let’s imagine how a strategic planning conversation around the restaurant’s SWOT analysis chart might unfold. First, the participants might realize there are some items on the matrix that can be improved with easy fixes. For example, perhaps someone is put in charge of researching and acquiring a straightforward and economical employee scheduling software platform , which takes care of the fact one of their listed weaknesses (the restaurant is “still scheduling shifts with pen and paper”).

Looking at the restaurant with a big-picture perspective, though, we see that it’s got a strong reputation (especially among tourists who pass through and give them rave reviews after), an outstanding product in their sake, and a fairly strong location thanks to out-of-town foot traffic. However, much of their business comes from tourists and there’s a concern about what that might mean with new competition opening up and a less-than-ideal parking situation.

On the other hand, the fact that the town is growing means the local population in town is increasing. Maybe some SWOT participants realize that, in catering to tourists, the restaurant hasn’t addressed the local population as well as they could. Maybe that means they should register to participate in the food fair listed under Opportunities. It would mean, after all, tapping into the local population the next town over. If they do well at the fair, those residents might be willing to make the 25-minute drive on a weekend to visit their new favorite Japanese restaurant.

But it also suggests that the restaurant needs to find other ways to strengthen and nurture its relationships with local residents—a population that perhaps cooks dinner at home to avoid evening tourism on Main Street. Perhaps they ask “how could we get local residents to try our food for the first time?” As you can see, their advertising budget isn’t great, so that avenue is closed. Looking over their SWOT, one participant points to that last item in Opportunities: “Potential for partnership with a catering service to work local events.”

Now the restaurant suddenly has a direction for its market research campaign. A whole set of questions suddenly arises: How financially viable (let alone profitable) could such an endeavor be? Is there even a market for Japanese event catering in this area? And what do they mean when they say “this area”? A 15-mile radius? 30? How many catered events even occur in “this area”? And on it goes.

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Our restaurant would then have to create a strategy for answering these questions. They might begin by reading industry reports on the state of the catering business (yes, they’re out there ). They’d learn about industry growth, forecasts, and average profitability. They could narrow their search to data such as payroll and profitability by state . They might then seek out catering companies within a 50-mile radius of their restaurant, learn about their prices, their profitability, what their marketing looks like, how busy their social media profiles are, whom they’ve catered for. Maybe they’d look through local newspaper archives and marriage records, or contact cultural organizations such as museums, opera houses, and places of worship to find out how many events (weddings, holiday celebrations, graduation parties, and so on) are held annually in their town.

If initial research suggests that a catering company might indeed be a successful endeavor, it’s then time for primary research . This might come in the form of a simple questionnaire handed out to customers, a more formal, in-depth survey sent out to local organizations who often host events, or even a focus group composed of local event planners who could advise the restaurant on what they look for when hiring a catering company.

As the restaurant moves forward in its research, the questions would get more detailed: what dishes would prospects want, what dietary restrictions should they prepare for, what would customers be willing to pay for additional services, and so on.

Post-SWOT Analysis Steps

Hopefully, this fictional SWOT example gives you an idea of what’s possible in creating your own action plan. Your own SWOT analysis will allow you to take the following four steps to ready yourself for research:

1. Define the problem you want your market research to solve . There’s a lot of information out there, and diving into the data without a clear objective is only going to overwhelm you. Knowing what you need to know and why you need to know it will keep your research on target. Our restaurant, for example, used one primary question to lead their market research: how profitable would it be to introduce a catering aspect to our already-thriving restaurant?

2. Form a hypothesis about what your market research will reveal . You may end up being way off, but that’s not the point. Forming a hypothesis will keep you actively engaged in the process. What will you do if your predictions are proven right? What consequences will it have for your business? What if you’re proven wrong? Do you have a back-up plan in case you’re taken by surprise?

3. Translate your question from a business problem into a research objective . Once you know what you want your research to accomplish, you’ll have to figure out how to obtain the data to accomplish it. Will you have to dig into public data like financial records and annual reports? Will you gather your own data from surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews? What sources will best answer the question you have? What will your methodology be? How long will it take? What are the costs?

4. Determine your sample size . How many people will you need to hear from to have an accurate picture of what your target market wants? How many prospects would have to express an interest in a new feature or service to make further research worthwhile? Your sample size will depend upon many things, but it’s good to have this criteria set before the research begins. After all, you’ll need to know when it’s time to stop, so you can move forward with implementation.

Congratulations! You’ve got your market research question in hand. In the next section, we’ll dive into the details of competitor research —the strategies for gathering as much valuable information about your competitors as possible.

Lauren Shufran

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Blog Marketing How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis in Marketing [+Examples]

How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis in Marketing [+Examples]

Written by: Jessie Strongitharm Jul 12, 2022

As marketers, we know how important it is to do your research — especially when it comes to your own strategies, campaigns and all decision-making therein. Yet in my experience, being balanced in your assessments ain’t easy when you’re on the inside looking in. 

Luckily, that’s exactly where a marketing SWOT analysis comes into play. 

A SWOT analysis helps you identify the strengths, weaknesses, potentials and pitfalls of your company so you can refine your strategies for the future.

So in today’s blog, you’ll learn how to use a SWOT analysis to identify problems and strategize solutions in marketing. I’ve also included plenty of customizable templates to give you a leg up.

Let’s get started!

Click to jump ahead

What is a marketing swot analysis , why should marketers conduct a swot analysis, how to create a marketing swot analysis .

• What are common SWOT analysis mistakes?
• SWOT analysis in marketing FAQs 

Hint: It’s no fly-shooing action, nor an internet prank gone wrong. 

A SWOT analysis is a simple and practical evaluation model that helps you understand the internal and external conditions that can make or break your marketing plans . Here’s a quick video on the topic for more context: 

Shorthand for Strengths , Weaknesses , Opportunities , and Threats , SWOT analyses are strategic tools that allow you to visually showcase these insights by organizing them within columns or a matrix. 

Typically, each section explores aspects of a company’s performance, resources and competitive position in the marketplace. Here’s a brief overview of each category: 

Strengths (internal) – Your strengths are the advantages you have in relation to the market and your competitors –  AKA your core competencies, Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) and the areas your brand should focus on to differentiate from others. A strong online presence, diverse service offerings and in-house talent are some examples of strengths. 

Weaknesses (internal) – Your weaknesses are the characteristics of your company that place you at a disadvantage compared to others. Limited resources, poor differentiation from competitors and negative customer perceptions are all examples of weaknesses that affect marketing.

Opportunities (external) – Opportunities are elements in your business’s environment that have the potential to improve your position if used to your advantage. Some examples include: the emergence of new technology and new consumer behaviors or buying preferences.

Threats (external) – Threats are elements in your business’s environment that hurt your company’s potential to compete in the market. Economic downturns, tighter regulations and increasing competition are all examples of threats that can impact your marketing efforts. (Psst – check out the FAQ below for more information!) 

Spoiler alert: the easiest way to build a SWOT analysis is to use a free SWOT analysis template , like the one shown below. Keep scrolling for more templates that you can customize for your own marketing needs. 

Return to Table of Contents

Similar to how a financial balance sheet provides a snapshot of a company’s assets and liabilities at a point in time, a SWOT analysis offers this same level of insight to marketers. (Hint: your sales organizations should do a SWOT analysis too.)

From launching new campaigns and exploring new channels, to considering new technologies and responding to industry trends, SWOT is designed to provide actionable information that  helps marketers — and their organizations — achieve their goals.

This process primes their strategic approaches, allowing them to use their strengths and potential opportunities to balance out, reduce or limit any weaknesses and external threats. 

What’s more, a well-executed SWOT matrix is a crucial ingredient for conducting a competitive analysis — AKA gaining insight on competitors’ marketing tactics, products and performance.

This is key for understanding your relative positioning and resulting competitive advantages, helping you get ahead in the marketing game. 

Check out the competitor SWOT examples below for inspo… 

So in sum, by providing a clear understanding of the market, industry competition and company’s strengths, a marketing SWOT analysis can help you answer questions like: 

• How successful is a given marketing strategy? 
• How are market changes impacting our business operations?
• How is our company performing financially?
• What marketing tactics should we be using?
• What advantage do we have over our competitors?
• What are we doing that our competitors are also doing?
• What products or services are performing/not performing well?
• What current marketplace trends can we take advantage of?
• What new target markets are available?
• What tools and resources do we have to reach at our disposal?
• What factors are pulling time away from our employees?
• Where are we failing to connect with our target market?

You know, just to name a few.

It’s worth noting, these types of analyses are extremely useful in industries where things change quickly. For instance, a  SWOT analysis in healthcare  would’ve helped organizations during the pandemic stay on top of these unprecedented events.

Creating a professional and polished SWOT framework is easy with Venngage’s SWOT analysis templates and drag-and-drop visual editor. Here’s how to get started: 

Define your focus 

The first step to creating an effective marketing SWOT analysis is to identify what your intention is. 

For example: are you looking to create a marketing plan? Or alter your current trajectory? Are you thinking about entering a new market with your existing product/service? Or trying out a new channel/technology? 

No matter the specific use case, know that the more specific your intention, the more useful the outcomes of your analysis will be. 

Compile your data 

It’s time to get all your ducks in a row – and by that, I mean your data! 

Gather your team members and brainstorm points for each section of your matrix, then do your best to condense each into a few succinct point notes. It’s best to keep things as concise as possible to avoid derailing your strategic efforts (more on this below). 

Sign up for a Venngage account and choose from hundreds of templates 

With Venngage, it’s easy to serve up information in a sleek, versatile and professional way.

All you need to do is fill in your user information and your desired use cases to access hundreds of customizable SWOT templates. Once set up, you’ll be able to create beautiful charts without any graphic design knowledge or technical expertise. 

Note: there are hundreds of templates available that you can design and share for free. If you want to access other designs, take advantage of in-editor features like My Brand Kit/Team collaboration and download your files, you’ll need to upgrade your account to a paid plan. 

Customize your SWOT analysis template 

The beauty of Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor is its a simple and powerful design solution for business communications. Once you’ve logged into your account and selected a template, you have the freedom to customize your templates and swap out or add any assets (i.e. text, icon and colors etc) into your design. 

But wait, there’s more! 

Looking to keep your branding consistent? Venngage’s My Brand Kit lets you apply your brand colors and logos to any template with one click.

Want to get more eyeballs on your SWOT analysis before you present it? Team collaboration feature lets you invite members to your team, edit designs together in real time, leave comments, create folders, save your creations and more. 

Easy-peasy, template-squeezy. 

Download your SWOT analysis diagram

Last but certainly not least, you can share or download a high-resolution version of your framework for immediate use in presentations and business communications. 

Sharing is available free-of-charge, while a Premium or Business plan allows you to export your creations to PNG, PDF, HTML and Powerpoint. (And gives you access to the other nifty features I mentioned above!)

What are some common SWOT analysis mistakes?

Congrats – you’re well on your way to becoming a SWOT-ting savant! 

That being said, there are some mistakes even seasoned marketers still make that you’ll want to avoid. Let’s take a look…

1. Listing too many items

Look, I get it: there’s nothing quite like a good brainstorming session to make you come up with 101 ideas and then some.

But the key to an actionable SWOT analysis is being able to present those ideas in a clear, concise and compelling way. That means having a defined focus, and avoiding overloading readers with information.

Try to condense and categorize your individual insights into a few overarching points. Use point-form to convey your ideas in a short space, then organize the information so your most important ideas come first. This will help you decide what to tackle foremost when creating your strategy.

2. Making generalizations

While being concise is important, make sure not to fall into the trap of oversimplifying. This only leads to incorrect, misleading assumptions that hurt your decision-making in the end. 

A good rule of thumb in strategic planning is to avoid black-and-white scenarios. Your data should reflect real-world preferences and campaign performance – not brash assumptions. 

3. Overestimating strengths

Often, people over exaggerate their business’ strengths. While it might feel good in the moment, this idealism only harms your ability to make well-informed strategic choices moving forward. So repeat after me: objectivity is key! Being honest about the facts will help you uncover your true opportunities and risks. 

4. Minimizing weaknesses

The flipside of overestimated strengths? Underestimated weaknesses. So for good measure, I’ll say it again: objectivity is key . 

Even the most successful businesses have areas that need improvement.  If your organization is aware of  its weaknesses, it becomes that much easier to mitigate future roadblocks, meet your targets and achieve long-term growth overall. 

SWOT analyses in marketing FAQs

What do you do with swot analysis data.

Data gained from a SWOT analysis is your key to making smart marketing decisions. 

By evaluating your company’s strengths and weaknesses, you can determine how to allocate your resources efficiently — helping you achieve maximum revenue growth and profitability.

And when you’re aware of what your company can achieve, it’s that much easier to adapt to market trends and changing dynamics. 

How important is the SWOT analysis for marketing managers?

In a word? Very. 

Similar to how market research is vital, without SWOT, it’s nearly impossible to gain a balanced view of your company’s positioning and potential.

Marketing managers who know their external circumstances, strengths and limitations can base their campaigns around informed decisions rather than idealistic assumptions. This helps them adapt to the rapidly changing world of marketing more successfully, and be proactive in their approaches. 

What are examples of threats in a marketing SWOT?

Remember: threats in a marketing SWOT analysis are external factors affecting your businesses’ ability to carry out your marketing objectives successfully. This involves assessing the actions of competitors, the emerging trends in the market and the overall landscape your business finds itself in.

Some good questions to ask are:

• What strategies are our competitors using?
• What advantages do our competitors have over us?
• What overlap exists between our services and our competitors?
• What technological challenges are impacting our business? 
• What adverse market changes are we facing now or in the future?

Like other external challenges, these factors might not be in your control. But the understanding you gain from this process puts you in a prime position to adapt to competitor action and economic changes. 

TLDR: fewer surprises = less last-minute course corrections needed.

Ready to create a SWOT analysis for your marketing team? 

To create a well-executed SWOT analysis that communicates your marketing prospects and pitfalls, you’ll need a way to showcase these insights in a visually appealing way.

While you could draw a matrix out by hand or Word doc the day away, it pays dividends to have a data visualization tool that can do this for you in a flash. 

Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor helps you create beautiful, professional graphics quickly and easily. Choose from tons of ready-made SWOT analysis templates and swap out the text with your own insights and icons, then export your content in a few clicks. 

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Your Guide to Effective SWOT Analysis [+Free Template]

You might think you know your strengths and weaknesses, but did Blockbuster expect to be blown out of the water by Netflix?

Not at first. In a fast-changing world, a casual approach to analysis is a big risk. Conducting a systematic analysis of your S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats (SWOT) is important to make sure you are constantly on top of the latest changes in your market.

Take it from all the fast-food giants that started adding vegan burgers and salads to their menu, keeping a thermometer on the market and an eye on the competition will give you a strategic advantage long-term.

This article will take a closer look at what SWOT analysis is and why it’s an important part of your company research . We’ll look at a systematic approach to the simple technique that any small, medium, or enterprise-size business can use as a solid foundation for its growth strategy and decision-making. Plus, you’ll get a template to do it all yourself and gain an extra competitive advantage .

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT is a formula that stands for S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats. But what is SWOT analysis for your company? It’s an effective method that helps you build a successful business and growth strategy.

A SWOT company analysis lets you understand your organization’s strengths and weaknesses, identify the opportunities and threats you are facing and gauge your position in global markets. From there, you’ll map your path toward your business goals, and voila! You’ve got your strategy.

Why is SWOT analysis important? The formula includes the key points that you need to identify, both internal and external. A company’s strengths and weaknesses generally refer to self-evaluation. Opportunities and threats aim at identifying external factors to consider when planning.

Take a look at this SWOT company analysis example: Before you enter a tennis tournament, you are mindful of your strong serve and weak backhand. You’ll also study your competition to identify which opponents get discouraged easily by a few strong serves and which players focus on backhand play. This puts you in the right mindset for the game, and you’ll know how to plan your own strengths against your competitors’ weaknesses to increase your winning chances.

Why is SWOT analysis important?

Whether you’re in a tennis tournament, a job interview, a song competition, or the international market, SWOT analysis is like the scaffolding you climb on to get a better view of your surroundings and that you build your action plan around. You can use it to define your internal strengths, pinpoint external opportunities, and create an informed business plan .

Why is SWOT analysis important to conduct before any competitive engagement? The method lets you make the most of what you’ve got and highlights your unique selling points. You get a better understanding of what awaits you down the road and can be prepared. You can make more realistic assessments to avoid disappointment and crises.

By using this structure, you focus on the crucial elements to consider. The SWOT matrix helps you look beyond the obvious internal factors that may be blinding or shadowing your view of less visible elements. You may discover hidden landmines before you step on them or an unexpected gold mine. If you are honest and rigorous when gathering insights, you’ll receive an accurate map of the competitive positioning and your position in it.

This helps you take a proactive approach on the path to achieving your goals. There will be fewer surprises on the way, and you can prepare for various possible scenarios from the start.

Check out our recent webinar on SWOT analysis – watch on demand now!

How to do a SWOT analysis for your company

It takes three steps to conduct and use SWOT company analysis as part of your strategic planning.

Step 1: Collect information

One way of collecting insights for your SWOT analysis is through a brainstorming session and business research. The participants should be stakeholders representing different departments or teams with a solid understanding of what is required from the relevant department and what’s happening on their side of the business. We are talking about department heads or team leaders from every area.

Another approach is through data and business analysis. You determine the parameters and metrics to measure and collect the relevant data from the various departments. This includes internal performance as well as external figures. The goal is to receive a detailed overview of the company culture and its market position in all aspects. For example, you’ll measure conversion rates to evaluate your PPC campaigns and benchmark against the industry average to evaluate this marketing channel’s strength.

The brainstorming method has the disadvantage that it usually yields non-numeric results and is, therefore, less precise than the data-based method. However, initial brainstorming can be helpful to determine where you need to focus when collecting data.

Download your FREE template

Step 2: organize the data.

Next, you want to rank your information according to importance. Issues with the highest business impact would typically be considered most important.

If you skipped the data collection until now, this is the time to back up the information with numbers. Make sure everything in your template is precise and wherever you can, add numbers. It’s the basis for building a strategy, for which you need to set measurable goals.

Organize the template accordingly and try to identify connections or potential opportunities. Can removing weaknesses open up additional opportunities, or does strength eliminate or at least reduce a risk factor? For better visualization, you can use the second table in the template.

Step 3: Use SWOT to build your strategy

Based on the data gathered, you can now set realistic goals for your growth, timeframe, and budget. The correlation of influential factors lets you create an action plan. You have identified the unique strengths and opportunities you can exploit while taking action to neutralize weaknesses and prepare for risks.

Let’s say you’ve identified that every one of your competitors has a blog that drives significant traffic to their site. You’ve identified a weakness. On the other hand, you also see that video marketing is rapidly gaining popularity with your audience, but your competition isn’t jumping on the opportunity. You may decide that investing heavily in video marketing has a much higher chance to drive traffic in the future than trying to compete with blogs.

Here’s another example: You are launching a new product and find out that the potential market for it is completely saturated in the U.S. It’s a weakness in your product. However, in Europe, there is a limited offer and growing demand. Here’s your opportunity. You then investigate which features are most sought-after there and create a strategy that promotes your product first in European countries, focusing on the popular features.

Questions to ask yourself when conducting a SWOT analysis

Let’s look at some of the questions market researchers can ask to evaluate the four elements in the SWOT formula.

• What does my company do well?
• What are our unique assets and resources (skills, tools, equipment, capital, popularity)?
• What do we do better than anyone else?
• Where do others see our strength?
• What and where could we improve?
• In what areas are we not competitive but should be?
• Which assets and resources are we missing (knowledge, cash, manpower, tools)?
• What do others perceive as our weaknesses?

Opportunities

• Which market trends work in our favor?
• Which markets are insufficiently covered in our industry?
• Which factors influence demand for our product?
• Which upcoming events or changes (regulation, policies, new technologies) can we exploit?
• Who are the potential competitors that may enter the market?
• Are any of our resources unstable or insecure?
• Which upcoming events or changes (regulation, policies, new technologies) pose a risk to our growth?
• Which market trends should we worry about?

These questions are very general, and the intention is to get you thinking in the right direction. In your SWOT analysis, you should get more specific and ask questions that pertain to your industry and business type.

For example, a SaaS platform may investigate desktop vs. mobile use to understand whether there is a strong trend toward mobile to decide on developing an app in the near future. An eCommerce platform may try to identify particularly successful pricing structures, and payment methods that are popular with their audience and evaluate their review section’s impact.

How can digital data power up your SWOT analysis?

The critical question now is, where do you get the data to conduct a reliable and actionable SWOT analysis? This is where Similarweb’s research intelligence tool comes in useful.

With our competitive analysis tools , you can benchmark your data against industry averages and determine your market share compared to competitors. Analyze other companies’ marketing strategies by measuring their website traffic and engagement metrics per marketing channel. Create company profiles to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and determine how much of a risk they pose to your success.

You get tools to examine different types of market trends that affect your industry. See the overall direction your market is taking and discover periodic or seasonal trends you can take advantage of.

Similarweb also provides you with data to analyze different audiences. Understand the differences in audiences your competitors attract and find your own niche.

Find out how Similarweb’s research intelligence tools help you receive and analyze the data needed for your SWOT analysis and to build a winning business strategy. To get started, try Similarweb now for free!

Industry SWOT Analysis: The Right Metrics to Fuel Your Growth ,

SWOT Best Practices to Fast-Track Growth in 2021

How To Make The Most Of A Competitive Matrix

Market Research Tips Straight From the Experts

This blog post was written with Ruth M. Trucks.

SWOT Analysis FAQ

What is SWOT analysis for?

A SWOT analysis will help you identify areas of your business that are performing well, and where you can improve.

How do you write a good SWOT analysis?

Zero in on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business to kickstart your competitive advantage.

What is an example of a threat?

Common threats include things like rising costs for materials, increasing competition, tight labor supply. and more.

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Wondering what similarweb can do for your business.

Give it a try or talk to our insights team — don’t worry, it’s free!

How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis for the Market Research Industry

To analyze before taking action is where the SWOT analysis comes into play. Learn more about its best practices and processes.  

The Market Research industry plays a crucial role in shaping business strategies and decision-making processes. To succeed with competitors, it’s essential for market research firms to assess their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). In further reading, we will discuss the process of conducting a SWOT analysis specifically aligned to the Market Research industry.

Understanding SWOT Analysis  

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that assists firms in identifying internal and external strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats. It provides a comprehensive view of the current state of the business and serves as a foundation for informed decision-making. 

1. Strengths  

Strengths represent the internal factors that give a market research firm a competitive edge. Here are some key strengths commonly associated with successful players in the industry: 

a. Expertise and Talent: The Market Research industry relies heavily on the skills and expertise of its workforce. According to Statista nearly 40,000 people were employed full-time by the top ten market research firms in the United States in 2020, highlighting the industry’s reliance on human capital. 

b. Technological Infrastructure: Leading firms invest in new-edge technology and data analytics tools to collect and analyze data efficiently. According to IBISWorld , the revenue of the market research industry in the United States is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.3% over the previous five years. Market research revenue has reached $31.6 billion, with an expected profit margin of 10.7% in 2023. 

c. Diverse Client Base: A diverse client portfolio reduces dependency on a single sector, spreading risk. A SWOT analysis can help firms identify which industries they excel in and where there’s room for growth. 

2. Weaknesses  

Weaknesses are internal factors that hinder a market research firm’s growth and success. Identifying and addressing these weaknesses is crucial for improvement: 

a. Data Security Concerns: The market research industry deals with sensitive client data. Firms must invest in robust data security measures to mitigate risks. 

b. Staff Turnover: High turnover rates can impact the quality and consistency of research projects. Addressing employee retention issues is essential for long-term success. 

c. Limited Global Reach: Smaller firms might have a limited international presence. Expanding into global markets could be a growth opportunity. 

3. Opportunities  

Opportunities are external factors that a market research firm can capitalize on for growth: 

a. Emerging Markets: The global market research industry is expanding into emerging markets. According to Statista , China’s market research earnings in 2020 were estimated at $2.88 billion USD. In the same year, Laos’ market research income was almost USD 2.5 million. 

b. Big Data and AI: Using big data and AI technologies can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of market research. A SWOT analysis can help firms assess their readiness for adopting these technologies. 

c. Industry Consolidation: Mergers and acquisitions are common in the market research industry. Firms can evaluate whether they should pursue partnerships or acquisitions as a strategic move. 

4. Threats  

Threats are external factors that can hinder a market research firm’s success: 

a. Economic Downturns: Economic recessions can lead to reduced client budgets for market research. Understanding this threat allows firms to prepare for potential downturns. 

b. Regulatory Changes: Market research is subject to various regulations, including data privacy laws. Keeping abreast of regulatory changes is crucial to avoid legal issues. 

c. Competition: The market research industry is highly competitive, with many players vying for clients. Analyzing competitors’ strengths and strategies can help firms differentiate themselves. 

Difficult ies W hile Doing SWOT A nalysis  

• Subjectivity and Bias

SWOT analysis relies on employee or industry judgment. This subjectivity can introduce biases because team members may have different views on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Biases can cause erroneous judgments and bad strategic decisions.  

To mitigate this difficulty, it’s important to:  

• Encourage honest and frank communication among team members.  
• Seek diverse perspectives from individuals at different levels and departments.  
• Consider using external facilitators or consultants to provide an objective viewpoint.  
• Base assessments on concrete data and evidence whenever possible to reduce subjective judgments.  

• Lack of Data and Information

Businesses may struggle to acquire enough relevant data for their SWOT analysis. This is especially difficult when judging market trends or competing forces. Analysis may be incomplete without current and correct data, resulting in less-informed judgments.  

To address this challenge, organizations should:  

• Spend money on advanced methods of data collection and analysis.  
• Collaborate with industry experts or subscribe to market research services for external data.  
• Prioritize ongoing data collection and market monitoring efforts.  
• Acknowledge areas where data gaps exist and work to fill them over time.  
• Lack of Objectivity in Assessment

Internal stakeholders may have emotional or personal links to certain areas of the company, making it difficult to objectively judge strengths and flaws. This lack of objectivity can overestimate strengths or understate difficulties, affecting analytical accuracy.  

To overcome this challenge:  

• Encourage a culture of constructive criticism and openness within the organization.  
• Use benchmarking and industry standards to provide an external reference point for assessment.  
• Consider involving external consultants or industry experts to provide an impartial perspective.  
• Ensure that SWOT analysis participants are aware of the importance of objective assessment and its impact on strategic decisions.  

In Summary:

Doing a SWOT analysis that’s all about the Market Research industry is super important when you’re planning your strategy. By using what we’re good at, fixing what we’re not so good at, taking advantage of good chances, and dealing with potential problems, companies can set themselves up for success in this fast-paced and data-heavy industry. Reach out to us now to gain deeper insights into the market!  

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SWOT Analysis Example: Definition and Template

SWOT analysis provides a comprehensive framework with a SWOT analysis example for evaluating internal and external factors impacting a company’s performance and competitiveness. By identifying a company’s strengths and weaknesses within the organization and analyzing opportunities and threats of different perspectives in the external environment, a SWOT analysis enables businesses to develop strategies for a new project that leverage their strengths, mitigate weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and overcome threats and negative factors

A SWOT analysis example can be valuable for understanding how this analytical strategic planning technique can be applied in practical scenarios. Whether you are a business professional, an entrepreneur, or a student studying strategic management, this SWOT analysis example will provide valuable insights and a deeper appreciation of the power of this analytical tool. So let’s dive into SWOT analysis examples and unlock the potential for strategic success with intellectual property!

SWOT Analysis: Definition

SWOT analysis is defined as an acronym for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats which is an effective market research analysis technique. Usually, SWOT analysis is used to evaluate an organization’s performance in the market and is used for developing effective business strategies.

LEARN ABOUT:  Market research industry

This SWOT analysis framework, which is now a trusted assessment source that organizations rely on to understand the scope of opportunities, value proposition, and threats by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses.

SWOT Analysis with Internal and External Factors

Strengths and weaknesses are primarily for internal analysis of an organization (in terms of market reputation, manufacturing line location, patents, etc.). To improve these good SWOT analysis factors, constant work needs to be put in over a course of time. But, opportunities and threats are external (in terms of competition, prices, associated partners, etc.) to an organization and they have no control over the changes that might occur to these external factors.

LEARN ABOUT:  Market Evaluation

SWOT analysis is also used in micro situations such as –

• When an organization’s strength is the product quality and there are chances of conversion of a particular deal, it will be advisable for the organization to assign a capable workforce for the closure of this deal. It is a SWOT analysis example of internal factors.
• Identifying weaknesses and their corresponding hindrances, the organization can strategize on how to overcome the weaknesses. For instance, if the sales results are a definite weakness for a company, they can try to minimize or eliminate it by regular training for the sales employees, providing access to multiple tools so that they can work off their skills, implementation of an efficient Customer Relationship Management software and other such corrective measures can be taken through this SWOT analysis. It is a good SWOT analysis example.
• A competitor losing its customers and going bankrupt can be a huge business opportunity for an organization intending to expand operations. Proactive research on how to operate, demographic segmentation and taking advantages of the identified strengths to ensure the competitor’s market is explored.
• Taking into consideration, organizational strengths and weaknesses, factors which may cause harm to the organization’s reputation can be identified. Considering swot analysis example, if the market forecast suggests a downfall in the economy, an organization can be prepared for it by reducing unwanted expenditures, appointing existing star-performers for sales conversions, etc.

Organizations conduct SWOT analysis extensively to make internal (strengths and weaknesses evaluation) and external (opportunities and threat evaluation) improvements as it can access an excessive pool of information with SWOT analysis examples. Already-existent companies should execute this strategic competitive analysis method at least once or twice a year to make sure they proactively analyze their market to keep making enhancements in various aspects of their organization.

Learn more: Market Research Survey

Importance of SWOT Analysis

The importance of SWOT analysis lies in its ability to provide organizations with a structured framework to assess their current situation and make informed decisions with a SWOT analysis example. Here are some key reasons why SWOT analysis is essential:

Strategic Planning:

SWOT analysis is a fundamental tool in business strategy. It helps organizations identify their internal weaknesses and strengths, and also external opportunities and threats. This information is crucial for formulating effective strategies that leverage strengths, address weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate threats.

Competitive Advantage:

SWOT analysis helps organizations identify and leverage their unique strengths to gain a competitive advantage in the market. By understanding market gaps, trends, and consumer preferences, organizations can align their strategies to exploit opportunities and differentiate themselves from competitors.

Alignment of Resources:

SWOT analysis helps organizations align their resources, such as financial, human, and technological, with their strategic objectives. By identifying internal strengths, organizations can allocate resources to areas where they are most effective. It ensures optimal resource allocation and maximizes organizational efficiency.

Risk Assessment:

SWOT analysis enables organizations to evaluate external threats and opportunities that may impact their operations. Organizations can develop contingency plans and proactively respond to challenges by identifying potential risks. Additionally, recognizing opportunities allows organizations to capitalize on market trends and gain competitive advantages.

Decision Making:

SWOT analysis provides a systematic approach to decision-making. It offers a comprehensive overview of various factors influencing an organization’s success. By weighing the internal and external factors, decision-makers can make informed choices that align with the organization’s goals and objectives.

Enhanced Communication and Collaboration:

SWOT analysis encourages collaboration and communication among organizational stakeholders. It brings diverse perspectives and insights, fostering a shared understanding of the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This collaborative approach promotes a more comprehensive and holistic decision-making process.

SWOT analysis is a necessary tool for organizations of all sizes and industries. It enables them to assess their current market position, identify key factors influencing their success, and make strategic decisions to achieve their goals.

Free SWOT Analysis Template in Market Research

A free SWOT analysis template can be a valuable resource in market research to assess an organization’s factors. The free SWOT Analysis template is a walk-through of how to conduct SWOT analysis using the 4 models: Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat analysis. Here are the 4 SWOT Analysis templates in details:

What is the organization good at doing? What are the key differentiators they offer? What are the primary resources they have?

Strengths depict the positive factors of an organization which they can control. They can be analyzed by dividing the organization into sales, finance, marketing plan, market share, research and development, and other structural elements. Strengths involve the positive contribution of key stakeholders in terms of experience, knowledge, educational background and such skills that contribute towards the performance of an organization. This SWOT analysis factor also includes tangible assets such as distribution channel, existing customers, generated finance, accessories etc.

Factors that add value to an organization’s operation by internal factors of a SWOT analysis and in turn build a competitive advantage called Strengths.    

Learn more: Quantitative Market Research

Weaknesses:

Where do you think there is a scope for improvement?

Weaknesses are those elements of the business which still need a lot of enhancement and are bringing the organization down in more than one way. There are certain areas of business which might not be shaping up according to expectation and this is leading to friction in achieving the desired goals.

Segments such as subject matter expertise, lack of financial support, unavailability of appropriate technological tools for training, an inappropriate location of the organization, etc. can fall under the category of “weakness”. These segments are under a company’s control but are contributing to significant losses.

Weaknesses are negative aspects which are contributing to an organization’s competitive disadvantage in a marketing campaign. An accurate understanding of negative characteristics will help an organization to improve and compete with the best in the business.

Opportunities:

What are the opportunities in the market, the ones from which an organization can prosper?

Opportunities gauge attractive elements of a market which can contribute towards more profits for an organization. These are external factors to an organization’s environment. There are always new avenues that crop up after executing marketing strategies. So, opportunities are generally the outcome of revenue/market growth, changes in market perception, a solution to difficulties faced by the market currently, the ability of an organization to add value to the market that in turn increases brand value. Associate a timeline for the identified opportunity after understanding whether it fits the current marketing strategy and also, whether the opportunity can be seized in the pre-decided timeline.

Which aspects of the market are a threat to a business?

Threats indicate those factors which may cause harm to the organization’s existing marketing strategies and also eventually lead to business losses. An organization can profit from inculcating the possibility of these risks into their marketing plans. Threats are those uncontrollable factors which will create business losses. Competitors, change in government policies, bad press coverage for products/services/events, a shift in customer behavior, change in market dynamics which might make certain products outdated and other similar angles are considered to be threats.

Learn more: Qualitative Market Research

Using this swot analysis template, you can conduct a comprehensive SWOT analysis by gathering relevant information and insights through market research methods, such as surveys, interviews, and data analysis. The swot template guides you to consider all factors that can impact your organization’s performance and competitiveness in the market.

Customize the free template based on your specific industry, market, and organization. The goal is to accurately assess your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, leading to actionable insights for strategic decision-making in your market research efforts

How to do a SWOT Analysis for a Business Plan?

There are two types of factors in a business model: internal factors and external factors. The factors which would exist irrespective of the existence of a specific organization are considered to be external and those that exist within an organization are of course, internal factors.

Implement the below mentioned 8 steps for SWOT analysis to develop a strategic plan:

1. Have a clear SWOT analysis objective:

The marketing team can discuss which topic needs immediate attention and this objective can be put to paper. This way, SWOT analysis can be conducted in an organized and effective manner. For example, if an organization intends to know whether or not to launch a new product line – this becomes the primary objective of SWOT analysis.

2. Conduct research to understand the target market:

For successful implementation of SWOT analysis, there should be a thorough understanding of what the market has to offer. Insights obtained from research about technology, customer service, competitors, etc, can be used to conduct an exhaustive SWOT analysis.

3. Identify business’s strengths:

An organization should understand what their strengths are, what are those features of their functioning which are better than the others in the market. Answers to these questions must be noted down. Workforce, location of the organization, product quality, etc. are some SWOT analysis examples of an organization’s strengths.

4. Identify the business’s weaknesses:

There are certain elements of the organization which need improvement. Marketers should create a list of these elements which they believe are harming their reputation in the market. Acknowledging these company’s weaknesses and working to eliminate them should be the intention of the SWOT analysis. This list can include aspects such as the reduction in product clients, constant downsizing of market share, lack of proper staff members et al.

5. Identify potential opportunities:

Evaluate external factors which can be lucrative for business growth. These are not internal processes and there are chances of the same factor being a threat to the business as well. While listing opportunities, one should keep in mind that opportunities should not be a threat to the business. As a swot analysis example, launching a new feature after opportunity SWOT analysis might cause damage to business in case there are competitors who offer the same feature at lower costs.

6. Identify threats to the organization:

Note down factors that are not a part of an organization’s ecosystem but are threats to business growth or personal growth. Unstable markets, the increasing competition in the market etc. are some threats to a small business.

7. Allot importance to various factors from SWOT analysis:

After completing step 3 to step 6, four different lists will be formed. The ideal way of amalgamating these lists is creating a side-by-side matrix . A matrix helps in generating a comprehensive picture for SWOT analysis.

Once the lists are put into a SWOT matrix, the degree of importance corresponding to each of the points so that marketing strategies for immediate implementation can be put into action.

Ask the following SWOT analysis questions to understand the priority:

• Can the organization implement their strengths to benefit from existing opportunities?
• Can the organization implement their strengths to get a grip on identified threats?
• What are the steps to be taken in order to make sure the organization’s weaknesses do not hinder taking advantage of the opportunities?
• What can be done to reduce weaknesses to get a grip on threats?

8. Create a strategy to solve identified problems:

After creating the SWOT matrix and answering all these questions, the marketing team can work to create marketing strategies to attain organizational aims.

Personal SWOT Analysis Examples

• Strong communication skills
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities
• Leadership and teamwork skills
• Adaptability and flexibility
• Excellent time management skills
• Lack of experience in a specific area
• Difficulty in delegating tasks
• Limited technical skills in particular areas
• Difficulty in managing stress and pressure
• Lack of assertiveness in certain situations
• Emerging markets and industries
• Technological advancements in the field
• Expansion or growth of existing industries
• Changing demographics or consumer needs
• Increasing demand for specific skills or expertise

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• Intense competition in the industry
• Economic downturns or recessions
• Potential job automation or outsourcing
• Lack of job security or instability in the market
• Limited access to resources or funding

A personal SWOT analysis provides valuable insights into one’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Individuals can develop personal and professional growth strategies by leveraging strengths, addressing weaknesses, capitalizing on opportunities, and mitigating threats.

SWOT Analysis Example with Questions

In this SWOT analysis example, we will consider a fictional company, ABC Electronics, and explore the questions that can be asked in each category of the SWOT framework: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Purpose: Launching a new mobile variant

• What are your strongest assets?
• How are your products/services better than competitors?
• What is your unique selling point?
• How efficient is your workforce?
• What do your existing customers have to say about their experience with your organization?
• Which sections of your organization need improvement?
• Which aspects of your business can the competitors benefit from?
• Do you lack subject matter technical expertise?
• Do you think your business has made enough money?
• How progressive are your competitors in terms of coping with market trends?
• Which trends do you think can bring you new opportunities?
• Will these trends benefit the market?
• Where does the current market lack?
• Are your competitors not successful in meeting customer demands?
• If yes, can you target those customers?
• Are there competitors in the market who can cut down your business?
• What are the roadblocks you are currently facing?
• Do your products/services comply with every existing law?
• Do you foresee a change in government laws in the near future?
• Do you believe your target audience might evolve in their product preferences?

By asking these questions and thoroughly analyzing each category of the SWOT analysis example, ABC Electronics can gain valuable insights for strategic decision-making. It is important to remember that the questions and factors considered will vary depending on the analyzed organization’s industry, market, and specific circumstances

SWOT analysis is a powerful tool that empowers organizations to assess their internal swot analysis strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis plays a vital role in the strategic planning process, enabling organizations to align their resources, identify areas for improvement, and capitalize on market opportunities.

However, it is essential to remember that each organization is unique, and customization of the SWOT analysis template to suit specific needs and contexts is vital. Utilizing the QuestionPro SWOT template for conducting a SWOT analysis offers organizations a powerful toolset to gather, analyze, and communicate data effectively. By leveraging these features, organizations can better understand their internal strengths and weaknesses, identify market opportunities, and mitigate potential threats. A comprehensive SWOT analysis using QuestionPro empowers organizations to make informed decisions, develop effective strategies, and drive overall success.

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What Is SWOT Analysis?

Understanding swot analysis, how to do a swot analysis, the bottom line.

• Fundamental Analysis

SWOT Analysis: How To With Table and Example

These frameworks are essential to fundamentally analyzing companies

Ariel Courage is an experienced editor, researcher, and former fact-checker. She has performed editing and fact-checking work for several leading finance publications, including The Motley Fool and Passport to Wall Street.

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework used to evaluate a company's competitive position and to develop strategic planning. SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future potential.

A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, initiatives, or within its industry. The organization needs to keep the analysis accurate by avoiding pre-conceived beliefs or gray areas and instead focusing on real-life contexts. Companies should use it as a guide and not necessarily as a prescription.

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Key Takeaways

• SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that provides assessment tools.
• Identifying core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats leads to fact-based analysis, fresh perspectives, and new ideas.
• A SWOT analysis pulls information internal sources (strengths of weaknesses of the specific company) as well as external forces that may have uncontrollable impacts to decisions (opportunities and threats).
• SWOT analysis works best when diverse groups or voices within an organization are free to provide realistic data points rather than prescribed messaging.
• Findings of a SWOT analysis are often synthesized to support a single objective or decision that a company is facing.

Investopedia / Xiaojie Liu

SWOT analysis is a technique for assessing the performance, competition, risk, and potential of a business, as well as part of a business such as a product line or division, an industry, or other entity.

Using internal and external data , the technique can guide businesses toward strategies more likely to be successful, and away from those in which they have been, or are likely to be, less successful. Independent SWOT analysts, investors, or competitors can also guide them on whether a company, product line, or industry might be strong or weak and why.

SWOT analysis was first used to analyze businesses. Now, it's often used by governments, nonprofits, and individuals, including investors and entrepreneurs. There is seemingly limitless applications to the SWOT analysis.

Components of SWOT Analysis

Investopedia / Julie Bang

Every SWOT analysis will include the following four categories. Though the elements and discoveries within these categories will vary from company to company, a SWOT analysis is not complete without each of these elements:

Strengths describe what an organization excels at and what separates it from the competition : a strong brand, loyal customer base, a strong balance sheet, unique technology, and so on. For example, a hedge fund may have developed a proprietary trading strategy that returns market-beating results. It must then decide how to use those results to attract new investors.

Weaknesses stop an organization from performing at its optimum level. They are areas where the business needs to improve to remain competitive: a weak brand, higher-than-average turnover, high levels of debt, an inadequate supply chain, or lack of capital.

Opportunities

Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage. For example, if a country cuts tariffs, a car manufacturer can export its cars into a new market, increasing sales and market share .

Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm an organization. For example, a drought is a threat to a wheat-producing company, as it may destroy or reduce the crop yield. Other common threats include things like rising costs for materials, increasing competition, tight labor supply. and so on.

Analysts present a SWOT analysis as a square segmented into four quadrants, each dedicated to an element of SWOT. This visual arrangement provides a quick overview of the company’s position. Although all the points under a particular heading may not be of equal importance, they all should represent key insights into the balance of opportunities and threats, advantages and disadvantages, and so forth.

The SWOT table is often laid out with the internal factors on the top row and the external factors on the bottom row. In addition, the items on the left side of the table are more positive/favorable aspects, while the items on the right are more concerning/negative elements.

A SWOT analysis can be broken into several steps with actionable items before and after analyzing the four components. In general, a SWOT analysis will involve the following steps.

Step 1: Determine Your Objective

A SWOT analysis can be broad, though more value will likely be generated if the analysis is pointed directly at an objective. For example, the objective of a SWOT analysis may focused only on whether or not to perform a new product rollout . With an objective in mind, a company will have guidance on what they hope to achieve at the end of the process. In this example, the SWOT analysis should help determine whether or not the product should be introduced.

Step 2: Gather Resources

Every SWOT analysis will vary, and a company may need different data sets to support pulling together different SWOT analysis tables. A company should begin by understanding what information it has access to, what data limitations it faces, and how reliable its external data sources are.

In addition to data, a company should understand the right combination of personnel to have involved in the analysis. Some staff may be more connected with external forces, while various staff within the manufacturing or sales departments may have a better grasp of what is going on internally. Having a broad set of perspectives is also more likely to yield diverse, value-adding contributions.

Step 3: Compile Ideas

For each of the four components of the SWOT analysis, the group of people assigned to performing the analysis should begin listing ideas within each category. Examples of questions to ask or consider for each group are in the table below.

Internal Factors

What occurs within the company serves as a great source of information for the strengths and weaknesses categories of the SWOT analysis. Examples of internal factors include financial and human resources , tangible and intangible (brand name) assets, and operational efficiencies.

Potential questions to list internal factors are:

• (Strength) What are we doing well?
• (Strength) What is our strongest asset?
• (Weakness) What are our detractors?
• (Weakness) What are our lowest-performing product lines?

External Factors

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.

Potential questions to list external factors are:

• (Opportunity) What trends are evident in the marketplace?
• (Opportunity) What demographics are we not targeting?
• (Threat) How many competitors exist, and what is their market share?
• (Threat) Are there new regulations that potentially could harm our operations or products?

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.

Step 4: Refine Findings

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.

Step 5: Develop the Strategy

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.

Benefits of SWOT Analysis

A 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.

• A SWOT analysis makes complex problems more manageable. There may be an overwhelming amount of data to analyze and relevant points to consider when making a complex decision. In general, a SWOT analysis that has been prepared by paring down all ideas and ranking bullets by importance will aggregate a large, potentially overwhelming problem into a more digestible report.
• A SWOT analysis requires external consider. Too often, a company may be tempted to only consider internal factors when making decisions. However, there are often items out of the company's control that may influence the outcome of a business decision. A SWOT analysis covers both the internal factors a company can manage and the external factors that may be more difficult to control.
• A SWOT analysis can be applied to almost every business question. The analysis can relate to an organization, team, or individual. It can also analyze a full product line , changes to brand, geographical expansion, or an acquisition. The SWOT analysis is a versatile tool that has many applications.
• A SWOT analysis leverages different data sources. A company will likely use internal information for strengths and weaknesses. The company will also need to gather external information relating to broad markets, competitors, or macroeconomic forces for opportunities and threats. Instead of relying on a single, potentially biased source, a good SWOT analysis compiles various angles.
• A SWOT analysis may not be overly costly to prepare. Some SWOT reports do not need to be overly technical; therefore, many different staff members can contribute to its preparation without training or external consulting.

SWOT Analysis Example

In 2015, a Value Line SWOT analysis of The Coca-Cola Company noted strengths such as its globally famous brand name, vast distribution network, and opportunities in emerging markets. However, it also noted weaknesses and threats such as foreign currency fluctuations, growing public interest in "healthy" beverages, and competition from healthy beverage providers.

Its SWOT analysis prompted Value Line to pose some tough questions about Coca-Cola's strategy, but also to note that the company "will probably remain a top-tier beverage provider" that offered conservative investors "a reliable source of income and a bit of capital gains exposure."

Five years later, the Value Line SWOT analysis proved effective as Coca-Cola remains the 6th strongest brand in the world (as it was then). Coca-Cola's shares (traded under ticker symbol KO) have increased in value by over 60% during the five years after the analysis was completed.

To get a better picture of a SWOT analysis, consider the example of a fictitious organic smoothie company. To better understand how it competes within the smoothie market and what it can do better, it conducted a SWOT analysis. Through this analysis, it identified that its strengths were good sourcing of ingredients, personalized customer service, and a strong relationship with suppliers. Peering within its operations, it identified a few areas of weakness: little product diversification, high turnover rates, and outdated equipment.

Examining how the external environment affects its business, it identified opportunities in emerging technology, untapped demographics, and a culture shift towards healthy living. It also found threats, such as a winter freeze damaging crops, a global pandemic, and kinks in the supply chain. In conjunction with other planning techniques, the company used the SWOT analysis to leverage its strengths and external opportunities to eliminate threats and strengthen areas where it is weak.

What Is an Example of SWOT Analysis?

Home Depot conducted a SWOT analysis, creating a balanced list of its internal advantages and disadvantages and external factors threatening its market position and growth strategy. High-quality customer service, strong brand recognition, and positive relationships with suppliers were some of its notable strengths; whereas, a constricted supply chain, interdependence on the U.S. market, and a replicable business model were listed as its weaknesses.

Closely related to its weaknesses, Home Depot's threats were the presence of close rivals, available substitutes, and the condition of the U.S. market. It found from this study and other analysis that expanding its supply chain and global footprint would be key to its growth.

What Are the 4 Steps of SWOT Analysis?

The four steps of SWOT analysis comprise the acronym SWOT: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These four aspects can be broken into two analytical steps. First, a company assesses its internal capabilities and determines its strengths and weaknesses. Then, a company looks outward and evaluates external factors that impact its business. These external factors may create opportunities or threaten existing operations.

How Do You Write a Good SWOT Analysis?

Creating a SWOT analysis involves identifying and analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a company. It is recommended to first create a list of questions to answer for each element. The questions serve as a guide for completing the SWOT analysis and creating a balanced list. The SWOT framework can be constructed in list format, as free text, or, most commonly, as a 4-cell table, with quadrants dedicated to each element. Strengths and weaknesses are listed first, followed by opportunities and threats.

Why Is SWOT Analysis Used?

A SWOT analysis is used to strategically identify areas of improvement or competitive advantages for a company. In addition to analyzing thing that a company does well, SWOT analysis takes a look at more detrimental, negative elements of a business. Using this information, a company can make smarter decisions to preserve what it does well, capitalize on its strengths, mitigate risk regarding weaknesses, and plan for events that may adversely affect the company in the future.

A SWOT analysis is a great way to guide business-strategy meetings. It's powerful to have everyone in the room discuss the company's core strengths and weaknesses, define the opportunities and threats, and brainstorm ideas. Oftentimes, the SWOT analysis you envision before the session changes throughout to reflect factors you were unaware of and would never have captured if not for the group’s input.

A company can use a SWOT for overall business strategy sessions or for a specific segment such as marketing, production, or sales. This way, you can see how the overall strategy developed from the SWOT analysis will filter down to the segments below before committing to it. You can also work in reverse with a segment-specific SWOT analysis that feeds into an overall SWOT analysis.

Although a useful planning tool, SWOT has limitations. It is one of several business planning techniques to consider and should not be used alone. Also, each point listed within the categories is not prioritized the same. SWOT does not account for the differences in weight. Therefore, a deeper analysis is needed, using another planning technique.

Business News Daily. " SWOT Analysis: What It Is and When to Use It ."

Seeking Alpha. " The Coca-Cola Company: A Short SWOT Analysis ."

Panmore. " Home Depot SWOT Analysis & Recommendations ."

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SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis offers insight into an industry's condition as it objectively assesses its strengths and weaknesses and its potential to deal with external opportunities and threats. 

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Generative AI Tools

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can be great supports for gathering early or exploratory data in SWOT or PEST analyses. Things to know:

• AI often generates false data (this phenomenon is known as "hallucinating"), so you must cross-check facts with the high-credibility sources linked on this guide in any high-stakes assignment for class or work.
• AI is not excellent about showing where information came from, and copyright infringement is still a major issue. To alleviate this concern, ask your AI where you might find data/articles to verify the information it has provided. If you cannot locate the sources it suggests, the library can help.
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Conducting a SWOT Analysis

• SWOT Analysis Guide by MindTools Explains the function and scope of a SWOT analysis, with tips for conducting one.

Finding Existing SWOT Analyses

Many websites make SWOT analyses available on the free internet, but additional high-quality SWOTs are available through WCU's subscriptions. Whichever sources you use, take a moment to cite them using one of the tools on the left side of this page.

• ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window Type the name of your company and SWOT into the main search bar. Try searching for SWOTs on the competition, too. For a precise search, type in DE "SWOT Analysis" and your company name or a relevant keyword.
• Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window From the main search page, click "Company Information" (at the top) and search for your company or its peers/competitors. Open the company's profile and click "SWOT Analyses" (on the left).
• IBISWorld This link opens in a new window IBISWorld contains industry-level data and Company Benchmarking data, both of which have SWOT-relevant information. Try searching for your company and your industry for small and large-scale SWOT considerations.

Creating Your Own SWOT Analysis

Use the other tabs on this guide to mine for data on your company, industry, target markets, and country. These firms offer high-level insights on various issues and are worth looking into, as well.

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How to Perform a SWOT Analysis on Your Company with a Market Research Tool

A SWOT analysis is a simple framework that goes a long way towards helping businesses develop their strategic planning process along with grasping their own stance in their industry. In turn, this kind of analysis allows them to make informed business decisions.

This is because all businesses have their share of strengths and weaknesses, and no company exists in a vacuum. As such, you should analyze the opportunities and threats that pervade your market to take advantage of your scope of opportunities while steering clear of threats. 

A SWOT analysis allows you to do just that, in turn enabling you to understand your company’s position in your market or niche and use this knowledge to take scalable actions.

This guide explores the SWOT analysis, its importance, how to conduct one for your business and how to use a market research tool to complete your analysis. 

Understanding the SWOT Analysis

Also called the SWOT matrix , this analysis is a kind of strategic planning technique businesses use to identify internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. Its components are laid out in its name, which is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

A SWOT analysis is a visual study tool that identifies specific strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and presents them in a diagram that takes the form of a two-by-two grid.  

This grid features four quadrants ; each one represents one of the letters of the SWOT and its concept. Each quadrant houses the list regarding the concept behind the letter. This format organizes the elements as internal versus external.  

You can conduct a SWOT analysis on an entire organization, or on individual projects in a single department. Aside from evaluating a company or project, a SWOT analysis is used to determine how closely a business is aligned with its growth trajectories and benchmarks . Additionally, it is used to gauge the performance of a specific project , such as a PR campaign based on preliminary predictions.

A SWOT analysis is most ideal when diverse groups or voices within a business provide actual data points rather than suggested messaging.

The Makeup of a SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis is made up of a grid with four quadrants, which represent each letter of the SWOT. To understand which quadrant an idea belongs to, you ought to consider strengths and weaknesses as internal factors, as they deal with the organization, its people, workflows, processes and assets.

On the other hand, opportunities and threats are external factors, given that they originate from your niche, your competition, your market and the wider economy. The following explains each element of this framework in detail:

This element pertains to all the things your organization excels at and how you are distinct from your competitors . It, therefore, involves your advantages over other businesses, which include your price range, quality of service/products, customer experience, access to certain materials, employee satisfaction , manufacturing processes and more. 

Since your strengths empower your organization, consider the factors that make it operational. Answer the following questions for the Strengths portion of your analysis: 

• What does your business do better than others in your industry?
• Which business processes are successful?
• What assets do your teams have? ( brand equity , knowledge, education, network, skills)
• What values drive your business? 
• What kind of physical assets do you have, such as equipment, technology, cash and patents?
• What unique or valuable aspect does your business have?
• What kind of low-cost resources can you draw upon that your competitors can’t? 
• How are you innovating your products and business processes?

Virtually any aspect of your business can be considered a strength if it brings a clear advantage to your business. If all of your competitors provide a certain aspect, then it becomes a necessity, not an advantage.

While admitting the weaknesses in your organization may be unpleasant, these truths are critical to aggregate and examine as soon as possible, as you can only mitigate them when you accept them. 

Given that weaknesses are innate to your company, you should map them out by focusing on your offerings, systems, people, resources, and procedures. In the weaknesses quadrant, mull over all that you can stand to improve and the kinds of practices your company must avoid.

To do so, you’ll need to consider — and possibly uncover — how others in your market view your business. These actors, which include your target market, competitors and media outlets in your niche may notice weaknesses that you are not aware of. As such, to complete this section, investigate how and why your competitors are doing better than you to come to terms with what you lack.  

Use the following questions for the Weaknesses portion of your analysis:

• What are some of the things that your business needs to be competitive?
• Which areas of your business generate the least ROI?
• Are there any aspects of your business that require more resources? (Such as a department, a project, etc.)
• Which business processes need improvement?
• Are you lacking tangible assets such as money, space or equipment?
• Are there any gaps in your team?
• Is your location ideal for your success?
• What areas are your competitors excelling at which you aren’t or not as strong as they are?

All in all, weaknesses are the negative factors that detract your business from its strengths. You ought to consider how to reduce them, along with your key areas for improvement to remain competitive.

Opportunities

This section involves all the openings and probabilities of something positive happening to your business, whether it is publicity, higher profits, greater ROI, a larger social media following and various other business matters. You must claim opportunities for yourself, as the nature of an opportunity is that of an external situation which you must look out for so that you can use it to your full advantage.

Opportunities take the form of developments in your market, whether they are technological, service or experience-related. When it comes to being competitive in your market, spotting and using opportunities makes a major difference to your business . At times these opportunities allow you to position yourself as the leader in your industry.

At other times, opportunities can take the form of small advantages that can still effectively shape your competitiveness. These can be present in both market trends and cultural trends.  

You should also anticipate changes in government policy related to your field. These can involve regulations that create barriers for your business. Additionally, take heed of changes in social patterns, population profiles and lifestyles, as all of these can offer opportunities.

Use the following questions for the Opportunities portion of your analysis:

• What interesting market trends are you aware of, large or small, which could impact your business in a positive way?
• If your market is growing, are there trends that will encourage people to buy more of your products and/ or services?
• What events can your company take advantage of to grow the business?
• Are there any imminent changes to regulations that might affect your company positively?
• Why kind of content opportunities can you execute to your advantage?
• Are there any current events or cultural trends that you can capitalize on?
• Are your vendors or manufacturers offering any perks or bargains that your business can benefit from?
• Do you receive cold emails with opportunities to either be featured in or collaborate with a media outlet or company in your niche?

This element includes anything that can negatively affect your business from the outside, including, but not limited to higher standards in market requirements, supply chain issues, shortage of employees, negative press and more.

No matter your revenue or standing, you should always anticipate threats to your business and be prepared to take the necessary action to thwart them before they take a toll on your business and stunt your growth . 

Threats can arise from anywhere; as such, consider all the obstacles you contend with in getting your product to market and selling it. These can easily include constant changes to quality standards or specifications for either your products, services or overall CX (customer experience). You’ll need to adapt to these changes if you intend on being competitive.

Additionally, although changes in technology are generally viewed positively, they can present threats to your business. As such, you should be wary of these changes so that you can adapt to them before they become true threats .  

Use the following questions for the Threats portion of your analysis:

• Do you have any potential competitors who may enter your market?
• Could upcoming developments in technology change how you do business?
• Have any media outlets spoke negatively about your business or focused their attention on praising your competitors?
• Will your vendors always be able to supply the exact materials you need at the prices that you seek?
• Is customer behavior changing in a way that could have a negative impact on your business?
• Are there any issues with your employees that can lead to high turnover and negative reviews?
• Are there any regulations the may have negative consequences on your business?
• Are there any market trends that could potentially become a threat?

Although threats are external and you have no control over their presence, you can still keep them at bay by conducting various market research techniques .

The Importance of a SWOT Analysis

This kind of technique is important on several fronts. First off, in a general sense, it allows you to make well-informed decisions, as it makes it possible to prioritize the work that you’ll need to do to grow your business.

Understanding your company’s position in your market or industry is crucial for any business in that it allows you to strategically develop your business and avoid wasting resources, efforts and time. This is crucial for various situations and scenarios, whether you’re trying to expand into a new market or compete with a surprise contender in your industry.

A SWOT analysis provides a comprehensive and unbiased overview of your entire business or a specific campaign or product . It forces you to consider every factor that could affect your project or business in one way or another. This is especially useful if you’re dealing with difficulties or lack confidence in your current strategy .

This is because a SWOT analysis offers all the details you’ll need to make actionable plans . The four quadrants grant you an easy way to organize your insights. 

This analysis helps your business operate more strategically, thereby granting you a better chance of reaping success . This is because it addresses what your business lacks, which allows you to minimize risks . It also pinpoints your greatest advantages and chances of success.

A SWOT analysis can be used to jumpstart your strategy whether it is in an informal or full-fledged way , as this tool can serve both approaches . 

Finally, you can also use it to better understand your competitors and their standing. This kind of intelligence lessens their threat to your business, as you can form a competitive narrative for your business, based on your analysis of your competitors . 

Performing a SWOT Analysis & The Need for Conducting Primary Research

In order to form a holistic SWOT analysis, you’ll need to dedicate a significant amount of time to formulate it. But not to worry, there are several steps you can follow and tips to take into consideration.

Additionally, you can objectively strengthen all of your SWOT analysis efforts with a market research tool . Whether or not you decide on using a market research platform, you’ll need to conduct market research for your analysis regardless . This is because this analysis is composed of data and insights from both your company and the market at large. 

While conducting secondary market research is inevitable and necessary, this kind of research alone is insufficient for a SWOT analysis. Consider this: you’re going to need answers to questions concerning both your company and market, both of which secondary research doesn’t provide all the answers for . 

In fact, many secondary sources may be loosely related to your business concerns, but do not answer the specific questions you require answered to adequately fill out your SWOT analysis.   

When you carry out your analysis, be realistic and rigorous and use a strong market research tool with various capabilities that ease the process. 

How to Perform a SWOT Analysis with a Market Research Tool

The following explains how to conduct a SWOT analysis with the use of a market research tool. Remember, market research plays a major role in executing this technique properly. 

• First, create the SWOT Analysis matrix, made up of the four quadrants. The following image shows what it should look like.
• You should aim your SWOT analysis on a specific objective or campaign to reap value from it. 
• For example, you could perform a SWOT analysis to help you decide if you should create a new product, change your CX or internal processes.
• Study trade magazines, news websites, industry sites, reports, blogs and even social media accounts pertaining to your industry.
• This includes studying your competitors through internet research and designated competitor research tools. 
• Examine all the available resources that detail your customer buying behavior , preferences, lifestyles and more. 
• These involve your financial resources, physical location, cost advantages, product features, brand visibility , customer experience, consumer loyalty and more.  
• This also includes employee relations. This is where a market research tool comes in handy. This kind of tool allows you to understand how your workers view your business and can point out their problems, concerns and desires to determine your strengths and weaknesses. 
• Employee feedback survey
• Employee recognition survey
• Employee burnout survey
• List things that you consider to be weaknesses, such as the things that put your business at a disadvantage when compared with others. 
• They can include a lack of new products, customers, staff absenteeism, a lack of intellectual property, declining market share, distance to market and a low customer lifetime value (CLV) among your customers.
• Check on these for accuracy, given that, as time progresses, your weaknesses may change or dissipate. 
• When you review your SWOT analysis after a year, your weaknesses may be resolved, a clear sign of progress.
• Product satisfaction survey
• Customer satisfaction score survey (CSAT survey)
• Customer effort score survey (CES survey)
• Consider different external opportunities for your business. These are not your internal strengths and are not definite.
• One opportunity for business could be a threat to another.
• Do not list the same item as both an opportunity and threat. You should weigh the benefits and drawbacks of a seeming opportunity before you can determine if it indeed is an opportunity or a threat.
• Opportunities include new technologies, training programs, partnerships, a diverse marketplace, new talent, new campaign ideas and a change of government policy.
• Survey your vendors and partners to discover opportunities with B2B surveys . 
• Identify your target market with an online survey platform. 
• Find cultural opportunities by using surveys to unlock cultural trends .
• Segment your target market via market segmentation with surveys. 
• List all the external factors that could cause a problem for your business or threaten it in any way. 
• Threats include high turnover, disgruntled workers, unsatisfied customers, rising unemployment, increasing competition, higher interest rates and the uncertainty of global markets.
• Brand tracking survey
• Brand awareness survey
• Create 4 separate lists on each SWOT element.
• Display them side-by-side so you can have a clear visualization of how your business is running and all of its issues. 
• Prioritize the most pressing issues along with categorizing those that can be dealt with later.
• Review the foremost issues in each of the four elements. 
• How can we overcome the threats we identified?
• How can we make the most of our opportunities?
• How can we use our strengths to take advantage of the opportunities identified?
• What do we need to do to overcome the weaknesses we identified to take advantage of the opportunities?
• How will we minimize our weaknesses to eliminate the identified threats?
• Don’t stop testing or conducting primary market research. Use your market research tool for A/B testing , sending personal surveys to exact targets via the Link Distribution Link feature and extracting any kind of customer information you need.

Supporting the SWOT and Beyond

A SWOT analysis is a strong tool that allows you to understand how your business is faring in your industry, while laying out external factors about your competitors and the industry at large. While you may offer competitive products and good prices, external factors will always affect your business.

In order to perform a SWOT analysis, generally stay informed on your customers and industry and remain competitive, you’ll need to conduct market research . Secondary research provides a useful starting point for studying all of your external factors, from your competitors to how others view your own business.

But it is primary research that will provide you with the most valuable insights. With a potent market research tool, you can easily gather all the insights you need about virtually any topic. A strong tool will make it easy to create and deploy surveys to your intended audience. 

When you’re deciding on the best market research tool for your organization, seek one that offers a mobile-first platform, as the use of mobile devices dominates the digital space.  

It should also include advanced skip logic to route respondents to relevant follow-up questions , use artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically remove low-quality data, offer a broad range of filtering data options and engage respondents in their natural digital environments via random device engagement (RDE) sampling.

Most importantly, it should allow you to survey anyone. As such, you should opt for an online survey platform that deploys hundreds of millions of surveys to a wide network of digital publisher s . Ideally, these are highly-trafficked websites and apps. 

When you use an online survey platform with all of these capabilities, you’ll quickly obtain your data and extract only the highest quality of it to support the SWOT and any other analysis.   

Do you want to distribute your survey? Pollfish offers you access to millions of targeted consumers to get survey responses from $0.95 per complete. Launch your survey today.

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Where do I find published SWOT analysis?

Databases for published swot analysis reports.

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that is used to assess the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in an organization, business or a project.  A SWOT analysis is particularly useful in identifying both internal and external factors that are essential in decision-making.

There are not SWOT analyses available for all companies in these databases. If there has not been one published on your company, or if your company is a privately owned, you may need to put together a SWOT analysis yourself using information found in company reports in these databases. Look for reports on 2 or 3 larger public companies in the same industry.  For example, in the computer software industry, try Microsoft and Oracle .  Companies in the same industry will often use or adapt their own strengths to capitalize on another company's weaknesses.

NOTE:  A published SWOT analysis may be a good starting point for your company analysis, but DO NOT simply cut and paste from a published SWOT or SWOT graph/chart.  This is plagiarism. Do not risk your academic career but instead use a variety of sources to support your claims.

• Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window From the main search page, go to Company Information (at the top of the page), and search for your company. Open the company profile and click "SWOT Analyses" on the left side of the page. This will open a list of available SWOT analysis reports for that company, including older reports.
• LexisNexis Academic This link opens in a new window Click "Advanced Search" and click "Select a specific content type." Click "Company and Financial" and click "Company Profiles." On the Advanced Search form, you can to conduct a segment/field search. Using the Company and Publication segments, type “Home Depot” in the Company field. (Tip: To find an exact phrase, you must put the phrase in quotation marks.) Type SWOT in the Publication field. Click the Search icon. On the right side of the report you select, you have links to related business content available on Nexis Uni.
• Proquest This link opens in a new window From the main search bar, type in the name of your company and SWOT. Be sure to check the full-text box. You can change the date range using the slider bar on the left side to narrow down newer reports.
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Market Research

SWOT analysis Any Commercial Business Strategy must ensure that the initial research and market audit and analysis runs alongside the basic elements of new product development in order to conduct the research required and begin to understand the market(s) that you will want to sell your products / services / solutions into.

It means conducting a SWOT analysis for each new ‘Product / Service’ area that you are looking to develop in order to better understand the status of your position as it currently stands – and provide an indication of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, which in turn will help to determine whether there is a realistic business opportunity here for each particular product / service.

From this, you will then be in a better position to see where improvements need to be made or change needs to happen in areas of product development and what needs to be understood more clearly to allow this to happen, and what should you be able to capitalise on to gain a foothold in the market, and then over time increase your market share.

Sizing and Evaluation As with any commercial ambition, there needs to be a full assessment of the likely market potential for any of your products and services in order to fundamentally establish the size and scope of the various market sectors that you wish to approach.

This is to establish who your prospective customers could be, what they might need (and in particular what they can’t find anywhere else). More importantly… do they have a budget and will they spend it to acquire a product or service from you?

And key to this is establishing whether there are indeed realistic sales opportunities for your potential products and services before you extend time, effort and money is developing something for which there is no market for.

Much of this is about identifying and assessing likely customers for your products and services:

• What are their overall business needs and business requirements?
• What reason would they have to buy something from you?
• Is this to do with features, benefits, added value, service, price, availability or something else?
• Who’s involved in the overall evaluation / decision / buying process?
• Who are the users, the influencers, the decision makers, the financial buyers?
• Have you met and assessed everyone on this list?
• What is their overall decision process?
• What’s their decision criteria? What must be fulfilled in order for them to make a decision?
• What are their timescales?
• Who else are they talking to?
• What do they want, that others cannot provide but you can (or could) – and which will also help you to formulate your USP’s?

In conjunction with who your prospective customers might be, a detailed competitor analysis will need to be undertaken in order to establish who is already present in this market space with similar products and services – so that you can begin the process of understanding what you would need to develop in order to be competitive, which in turn will help to establish your own marketing messages, your key differentiators and USP’s and other elements such as pricing etc.

Also it’s about having that range and diversity of products and services and how you can offer a prospective customer something suitable that will not only meet their particular needs but also fit their budget.

This way your efforts will remain focused and prioritised.

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Industry swot analysis.

• What are the industry strength and how to capitalize the same : Strength concentrates on positive attributes of industry, which can be controlled.  Identifying strengths will help companies to align their performance with industry and reap benefit from existing capabilities.
• Identify the Inherent weaknesses within the Industry:  Weaknesses reflect negative aspects of industry. Weaknesses hamper the value of existing companies and if not taken care of, could become competitive disadvantages.
• Explore the Opportunities and Expand Your Business :  Opportunities are hidden gems for industry. By using positive attribute of strength, opportunities can be harnessed.
• Identify Industry Threats Early Before It's Too Late : Threats are often considered as outsiders upon which industry has no power. But threat can also emerge from inherent weaknesses, A well prepared contingency plan could avoid threat.

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The reports covering Industry SWOT Analysis industry offer trends analysis of various types. These include overall key growth opportunities in global Industry SWOT Analysis industry.

The major trends and analysis covered are:

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• Find SWOT Analysis in Business Source Premier
• Help! My SWOT Analysis is not there!

In the Business Source Premier Database , you can find published SWOT analyses for many public companies. You can find SWOT analyses within company profiles. You can see if there is a company profile for your franchise by clicking on the company profiles tab above the search bar.

• Your Opportunities and Threats are about the industry, not the individual company. Look at industry profiles and a SWOT analysis for your competitor (you have the same O&T if you are in the same industry and you may or may not have the same S&W's). 
• Your exact search terms to locate articles (in Business Source Premier, ABI Inform, or Lexis Nexis) will vary per your company. Consider using the advanced search. In one row, include the company name and use the pull-down box to select Company.  In another consider the phrases you'd like to find in your article. You can try strengths OR advantages. If that doesn't work, try customers OR consumers as the articles about the customers might discuss what they like or don't like about the products or services. 
• << Previous: Detailed Company Information
• Next: Statista >>
• Last Updated: Mar 22, 2024 1:14 PM
• URL: https://guides.rider.edu/market