The SWOT Analysis

As we all know that SWOT analysis, is one the best analytical tool available for analyzing any a
company’s / firm’s near or future business environment.
We know that SWOT stands for
S – Strength
W – Weakness
O – Opportunity
T – Threat
Assuming that everyone here knows the literal meaning of these words, so I will not define it again.
But just for your information:
S & W are internal properties
O & T are external conditions
Now, while performing the SWOT analysis, what we generally do is to list the STRENGTHS,
WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES and THREATS and we assume that the analysis is complete. But this is
actually the beginning of the analysis; this is simply the raw material for the analysis to be done.
The next and the most important step in performing SWOT analysis is the SWOT Matrix. Let’s see what
it is:

OPPORTUNITY THREAT
SWOT O1 T1
MATRIX O2 T2
STRENGTH
S1 S+O S+T
S2
WEAKNESS
W1 W+O W+T
W2

Here we can derive strategies from the above matrix, and the SWOT analysis is hence said to be
completed.
But again the basic motto of telling you about SWOT matrix was something else. Now after giving a
thought to it, I tried to add something more to this SWOT matrix and hence something more to the
SWOT Analysis.
We have been told to define strategies based on the above matrix, but of what kind and on what basis.
So for this I’ve come up with an add-on to this matrix and termed it as “SWOT MATRIX STRATEGY
CRITERIA” or simply SMSC. Now let us see how it works:

OPPORTUNITY THREAT
SMSC

STRENGTH
WIN IMPROVE

WEAKNESS
LEARN &
DANGER
IMPROVE

SMSC tells us or guides us that, what type of strategy is required to be made on different situations as
mentioned above, these are as follows:
(S+O) – WIN – Strategy to retain market share, retain the customer base
(S+T) – IMPROVE – Defensive Strategy, to develop self and retain market share
(W+O) – LEARN & IMPROVE – Change in product/service and offer it to the market
(W+T) – DANGER – Strategy to diversify into other industry or product type OR an
immaculate change in existing product to offer.
The technique is still under consideration, more comments are required on thus topic.