Strategically analyze your business. Find out what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Increase your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, exploit your opportunities and avoid the threats. Check out: http://www.business-plan.co.za

1. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
The Dangers of
Traditional SWOT
Analysis

2. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
Strategically analyze your business. Find out what your strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Increase your strengths,
minimize your weaknesses, exploit your opportunities and avoid the
threats. Click here year again. And, no, I'm not referring to
It's that time of Christmas
shopping. It's only September, for gosh sake!
I'm talking about strategic planning.
This is the time of year to pause for a bit longer than usual and think
and about what winning will look like next year. It's when we peer
into the future to determine where our organizations need to go and
what we need to do to get there in the upcoming calendar year. It's
when we identify our top three to five strategic objectives, lay out the
specific action steps needed to achieve them, and determine a
realistic timeframe for reaching our destinations.
For most companies, conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities & threats) analysis is an integral part of the strategic
planning process. And it can be very helpful because an accurate
identification of SWOTs plays an important role in determining
subsequent steps in the planning process.

3. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
For those not familiar with SWOT, strengths are those areas where we
excel that are not easily copied by others. These include things like
financial and people resources, infrastructure, management, price,
delivery time, brand strength, customer service, product quality and
so on. Weaknesses are the risks or limitations that get in our way.
Anything that constitutes a strength can also be a weakness if we
don't perform well in that area.
Opportunities represent possibilities that we can capitalize on or
leverage. They come in all shapes and sizes and can pop up as a
result of market trends, new technologies, changes in the political or
economic environment, competitor actions, and more. Threats consist
of events in the external environment that give us cause for concern.
For example, what are our current competitors likely to do, and where
might unexpected competitors come from? An opportunity can also be
considered a threat if our competitors are better positioned to take
advantage of it.
When used properly, SWOT is a powerful planning tool. Unfortunately,
many companies misuse it by getting stuck in old patterns of thinking

4. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
about problems and threats rather then looking ahead to where the
company needs to go and focusing on winning.
A primary goal of strategic planning is figuring out what you can do,
not what you can't. However, rather than looking for new and better
ways to add value to their customers, many companies use the SWOT
process to focus on blaming competitors, the economy, or other
external factors for things they can't control. As a result, they end up
spinning their wheels rather than gaining any real traction to move
the company toward its destination.
The key to using SWOT effectively is not just identifying your
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It's asking the right
questions and using the information that gets uncovered in an
appropriate manner.
For example, when considering your organizational strengths, ask
questions like:
Where have we really been able to excel?

5. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
Is there something we have that we don't use/do enough?
Is there something we can develop quickly that we can leverage?
What do others consider our greatest strength?
When considering weaknesses:
What has gotten in our way in the past?
How do we get in our own way?
What processes do we have for identifying weaknesses in the
organization, and how well do these processes work?
What processes do we have for addressing these deficiencies, and
how well do these processes work?
What functional silos are scattered across the organization?
Are we monitoring signs and signals from the marketplace that can
both support our expectations, if appropriate, and provide strong
evidence when new paths are desirable or necessary?

6. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
When identifying possible opportunities:
Is there a product, a customer relationship, or a market presence that
we can better leverage?
Is there something we would pursue if we had more resources
(people, dollars, time, etc.)?
What are our competitors most worried we will do? Should we?
What signals are critical to assessing our relationships with our market
and customers?
How diverse is our portfolio of business relationships and
opportunities? Are there numerous ways to succeed?
What investments are we making whose primary returns will be in the
long term?
Are our plans formulated in ways that they will support adapting to
evolving or new market opportunities, including unexpected
opportunities?

7. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
When considering threats:
What are we most concerned about?
Are their new or different competitors likely to emerge?
Is there a potential supply problem?
Do we have good relationships with employees, vendors and
customers?
It also pays to analyze and review how you conduct the SWOT
process itself. Not just after the fact, but as you're engaged in the
process. For example:
What proportions of our organization's resources go towards
maintaining and enhancing the status quo?
How much time do we spend leading and nurturing new directions?
What new efforts have we started in the past year? What efforts have
we stopped?

8. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
Is our long-term thinking focused on the few critical things that
matter? Are we vigilantly avoiding the many possible diversions?
Do we have the people and financial resources to execute our plans
successfully?
Do near-term problems and opportunities frequently preempt long-
tem plans and undermine progress?
Does it seem like the rest will be easy once we have finished our
plans?
Becoming a leader in today's chaotic markets requires fast, flexible
and highly adaptable organizations. Ones that anticipate and plan for
change rather than react to it after the fact.
A SWOT analysis can help you achieve this strategic agility, but only if
you use the information to break away from old patterns of thinking
and make strategic decisions based on where you're going rather than
where you've been.
Next year will get here before we know it. What are you waiting for?

9. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
Consultant, Author, Speaker
Holly Green is the CEO of THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc.
(www.thehumanfactor.biz) She has over 20 years of executive level
and operations experience in FORTUNE 100, entrepreneurial, and
management consulting organizations.
Green's background stretches across strategic planning, organization
design and development, and leadership assessment and
development. She has been responsible for successfully designing and
building critical infrastructures in several organizations and has
worked as both an internal and external resource for multinational
corporations including: AT&T, Dell Computer, Bass Hotels & Resorts,
Expedia, RealNetworks, Microsoft and Google. She was previously
president of The Ken Blanchard Companies, a global consulting and
training organization, and the biotech firm LumMed.

10. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan
Her commitment to educating executives on how to be effective
leaders and managers in today's changing world is evident with a
proven track record of value-added delivery. As a sought-after
speaker and consultant, she has received national recognition and in
2007 was honored as a dynamic business leader and role model
receiving the Women Who Mean Business Award.
Holly conducts more than 50 workshops annually for Vistage, the
world's largest CEO membership organization. She is also a frequent
keynote speaker for numerous corporate and professional
associations. Her book, More Than A Minute: How To Be An Effective
Leader & Manager In Today's Changing World
(www.MoreThanaMinute.com) lends voice to her corporate experience
and goes beyond the theory of leading and managing by providing
practical action oriented information.
Article Source:
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11. The Dangers of Traditional SWOT Analysis
Business Plan