Sometimes it is very clear what an organization’s threats and opportunities are when performing a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). It may also be that an organization falls into a rut of simply restating the same threats and opportunities every year.
We use strategic thinking exercises and questions as “detours” around organizational thinking that is in a rut. Asking questions in a different way than is typically done forces people to look at new possibilities and actually think before blurting out the standard answers.
An Old AND New SWOT Analysis Example
We have previously shared strategic detours for getting to new thinking about an organization’s threats and opportunities.
Here is a new SWOT analysis example that is really an old one.
Revisiting our online repository of strategic thinking exercises, I came across this one from our early days of collecting and developing new ways to help people think about their threats and opportunities.
Rather than asking single questions about threats and opportunities, this strategic thinking exercise pieces answers together from considering specific perspectives your customers, competitors, markets, and own brand has. Simply use each of the situations in each “equation” to generate ideas and see how the combinations of ideas build out a perspective on an organization’s of opportunities and threats.
Opportunities come about when . . .
- Customers Want It + We Do It Well
- Customers Want It + We Do It Well + Competitors Don’t Do It Well
- Customers Want It + Nobody Does It Well
- Customers Want It + We Do It Okay + We Can Improve How We Do It
Threats come about when . . .
- Customers Want It + We Don’t Do It Well
- Customers Want It + Competitors Do It Well
- Customers Aren’t Wanting It as Much + Our Business Is Built Around Offering It
- Customers Want It + We Do It Well + Competitors Are Moving to Do It More or Better
- Our Business Is Built Around Offering It + Market Forces Are Working Against It
The caveat with this strategic thinking exercise is we pulled it from the “safe.” We have not put it through its paces in a number of years to check how productive it is and update it with new variations. As we do that though, we wanted to share it with all of you to test it out as well. Given the number of people that come to the blog looking for new and different strategic thinking exercises, we wanted our readers to be able to test it out as we do.
So here’s to learning what new possibilities this golden oldie SWOT analysis example will yield today! - Mike Brown
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