A SWOT-Analysis is a method to identify the Strengths and Weaknesses as well as the Opportunities and Threats of your business. With a little thinking, a SWOT-Analysis could help you to uncover opportunities, for which your business is well positioned. Understanding the weaknesses of your business could help you to manage and eliminate threats, which may otherwise catch you unaware.

With a SWOT-Analysis you get a better overview about the strategic situation of your business (e.g. market, industry or global situation) or any other topic which you analyse by SWOT. But there are a lot more occasions to prepare a SWOT-Analysis for.

Here are some ideas what you could assess with a SWOT-Analysis:

• Review a company or business unit (its position in the market, commercial viability, etc)
• Review methods of Sales and Distribution or Marketing Strategy
• Review a product or brand, evaluate products or review your company's services
• Analyse a business idea
• Analyse strategic options, such as entering new markets or launching new products
• Considering a opportunity to make an acquisition
• Examine a potential partnership with a supplier or outsourcing a service, activity or resource
• Considering an Investment Opportunity
• Judge a Project of any kind
• Use it in Workshop sessions
• Use it for Brainstorm meetings
• Use it as a tool for Problem solving
• Revise Business or Strategic Plans
• Prepare a Competitor analysis
• Revise Personal Development Planning or Career development
• Use it for Decision Making
• Revise the way you are managing your employees
• Finding new Innovations in your business
• Evaluate your Intranet Site or your company's Website

And there are probably a lot more topics you could assess with a SWOT-Analysis. Preparing a SWOT-Analysis for your business could help you to find a sustainable niche in your market. You might also get a better understanding of your competitors from a SWOT-Analysis, which might provide you with more insights to establish a coherent and successful competitive position.

SWOT-Analysis could be used for every sort of decision-making. It enables pro-active thinking. It will also assist you in distinguishing between the situation of your business today and where or what it could be in future.

How to use a SWOT-Analysis

To get the most out of a SWOT-Analysis you should know some rules about using it. These rules will help you to keep focus on the topic for which you prepare your SWOT-Analysis.

Here are some simple rules you should apply to your SWOT-Analysis:

• be specific - describe the subject for the SWOT-Analysis clearly
• the finished SWOT-Analysis should be easy to understand as well as its implications
• avoid unnecessary complexity and don't analyse to much
• keep your SWOT-Analysis short and simple depending on the analysed topic or situation
• be realistic and rigorous about the strengths and weaknesses of your business
• always analyze in relation to your competition i.e. better or worse than your competition
• only list opportunities that you have i.e. if a competitor has the same, don't list it
• only state strengths that are unique to your business
• have clear objectives/goals for the analysis

Following the above mentioned rules will streamline your SWOT-Analysis as well as to assist you when additional participants enter your analysis team. A SWOT-Analysis could be started by one person, but usually you will see better results when you have a team around you. However, you don't have to start or end with a team. The SWOT-Analysis allows a great flexibility as you could ask for the contribution of others, when you need it.

The methodology of the SWOT-Analysis has the advantage, that you could use it for "quick and dirty" as well as for comprehensive and meaningful analysis. The latter will require more time and more resources. You could even switch from one of these options to the other. You may start quick and dirty and may decide later to do a more comprehensive analysis. You don't need to decide this in advance.

The SWOT-Analysis template normally consists of a grid, showing the four sections of SWOT. There are different ways in positioning the four sections. To find the best combinations for strengths and opportunities, we use a grid that allows to see strengths and opportunities side by side.

Questions or questionaires are a good way to start discussions around the topic of a SWOT-Analysis. Questions also help you to find dependencies and interconnections. They might even make you think about things in different ways.

What ever you discuss in your business, it might be a good idea to prepare a quick SWOT-Analysis about it. The more familiar you are with this kind of analysis, the easier it will be to prepare one.

SWOT-Analysis are a good method for workshops or brainstorming meetings. But bear in mind, that a SWOT-Analysis is a subjective assessment of the selected topic. However, the SWOT-Analysis is a good extension of Pro and Con lists.

Results from your SWOT-Analysis and what to do next

The results of your SWOT-Analysis will reveal the competitive advantages of your business and will assist you in preparing a contingency plan if necessary.

If the SWOT-Analysis is done properly, it will provide you with a big picture of the most important aspects that are influencing the Survival and Prospertity of your business.

Now as you have the results of your SWOT-Analysis, you need to define and take the actions, which allow you to take advantage of your strengths and of the opportunities you have identified.

Should you use SWOT-Analysis?

Yes and no. It depends on how you prepare your Analysis. A SWOT-Analysis could be both a great tool or a waste of time. But the outcome depends on the one who uses the method and on the input.

The more people are involved in a diagnostic process the more reliable the results will be. You could also see a SWOT-Analysis as the summary of a set of previously prepared analysis. You should be aware that a SWOT-Analysis is a starting point. It helps you to evaluate strategies.

The results of a SWOT-Analysis might reduce the range of available strategies. Therefore it is important to have a specific topic for your SWOT-Analysis. It might also happen, that a SWOT-Analysis provides you with more topics to run additional analysis to find the right strategy for you.

In any case, a SWOT-Analysis could assist you in getting a clear view about your strengths and how to apply these to profit from the opportunities you found for your business.

The SWOT-Analysis is one analysis you could use to improve your business, but you should not forget about other important analysis (e.g. Performance Management), as the SWOT-Analysis is more focused on Strategy as on analysing the actual operation of your business.

The abenetis SWOT-Analysis

The SWOT-Analysis offered by abenetis is available in 2 different forms. One is the traditional form based on the 4 Areas of a SWOT-Analysis such as Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You are able to score each of your entries to state the most important ones.

The other available form is starting with a Questionaire. This Questionaire consists of 114 positions separated into 13 categories. Each position has a description and help text to assist you in finding your score. While going through each position of the Questionaire you are actually performing 2 other Analysis as input for your SWOT-Analysis.


The Results from the Questionaire could be compared between businesses in a confidential way. Thus you could see how your business situation from a strategical point of view. However, we do not guarantee the availability of comparison data, as every user could add or delete data from questionaire on own decision.


The positions of the Questionaire are related to analysis called "Critical Success Factors" and "5 Forces". While analysing the "5 Forces", which could also be called "Competitive Forces Analysis", you are evaluating your industry from different points of views. We extended the 5 Forces into 6 Forces to reflect additional impacts to your business.

Try the abenetis SWOT-Analysis yourself...