It’s not necessary to hire an expert to do a SWOT analysis for your business, you can quite easily do it yourself after checking out a few SWOT analysis examples online.

Seeing how a SWOT analysis can be implemented in a variety of ways is useful when you are busy with your business plan research and preparation; here are some SWOT analysis examples illustrating how this approach can be tailored to suit pretty much all areas of your business.

1. Sales SWOT Analysis Example

Strengths:

You need to understand what your sales team is good at.

  1. What does your team do better than anyone else?
  2. What benefits do your customers get from working with you?
  3. What does your product or solution offer that your competitors can’t?
  4. Do you have unique processes, products, or services that set you apart?

The aim is to identify your unique selling proposition and capitalise on that.

Weaknesses:

Every sales team has weaknesses. By identifying these you can find ways to strengthen them.

  1. What does the competition see as your biggest weakness?
  2. What do your customers regard as a weakness in your sales methods, product or service?
  3. When you lose a sale, why did it happen?

Related: Maximise Every Sales Opportunity

Opportunities:

Opportunity is all around us, but is easily overlooked.

  1. What do you see as a good opportunity that will strengthen your business?
  2. In what segment of your market are clients consistently making purchases?
  3. What high margin products or services can you expose to a broader market?
  4. Have you noticed a change you can exploit in your market?
  5. Is there a market you can enter with greater profits potential?

Threats:

These can have a huge impact on your business. You have to understand where danger exists in the marketplace.

  1. Does more that 25% of your sales revenue come from less than 10% of your customer base?
  2. What recurring challenges do your sales people face?
  3. Is there a competitor that consistently beats you in the marketplace?
  4. How much bad debt are you carrying
  5. Are sales meeting expectations?

2. Marketing SWOT Analysis Example

You can perform a SWOT analysis as a way of deciding which marketing strategy to implement.

Strengths:

List the main strengths of your business and products or services. This should include not only the areas that your business or products are good at, but also high profit margins, successful current marketing campaigns and similar strengths.

Weaknesses:

List the main weaknesses of your business and products or services. This should include the areas that you feel your business could improve on.

Opportunities:

List the best opportunities available in your market, or new markets you believe your business can succeed in.

Threats:

List the biggest threats to your business. This could include competitors, government regulations, changes in customer attitudes and other such areas.

3. Business SWOT Analysis Example

An analysis of a company’s internal strengths and weaknesses, compared to its external opportunities and threats, can offer insight into the state – and potential – of the business.

Strengths:

Describe the positive attributes, tangible and intangible, within your organisation.

  • What do you do well?
  • What resources do you have?
  • What advantages do you have over your competition?

Weaknesses:

Identify the weaknesses within your business. These are factors that detract from your ability to obtain or maintain a competitive edge.

Opportunities:

Assess the factors that represent the reason for your business to exist and prosper. What opportunities exist in your market, from which you hope to benefit?

Threats:

What are potential threats to your business? You can benefit by having contingency plans to address them if they should occur.


Benefits of SWOT analysis:

  • A framework for identifying and analysing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
  • A way to analyse a situation and develop suitable strategies
  • A basis for assessing core capabilities and competencies
  • The evidence for change.

Cheat Sheets

Here are a couple of special cheat sheets to help you get along with your business planning quicker: