SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Where as the strengths and weaknesses analyze the core competencies and capabilities of the company in the context of the internal environment, the opportunities and threats are in the context of the competitive landscape in the external marketplace. Some examples of strengths and weaknesses are given below:

For examples pertaining to opportunities and threats, please refer to the depiction below:

SWOT is a time-honored framework to initiate any meaningful competitive analysis. It can be applied to a company, a company's product lines, a company's solution offerings, or a company's top-down strategic planning initiatives.

The application of this framework is not limited to the world of business. For an example of a good application of this framework in the field of politics, please refer to our John McCain SWOT article in Franteractive's Global Economy Portal.

For business strategy applications of this framework, please check our Solved Cases section, and please browse the book Strategic Case  Analysis - Business Concepts, Strategy Frameworks, and Solved Cases as Socratic Dialogs.