SWOT Analysis Examples for Every Business Situation

For small businesses, it is important to analyze all situations carefully before taking any decision. That way, there will be fewer chances of making mistakes and designing strategies that won’t work.

To help these businesses, several analytical tools are available, one of them being the SWOT Analysis. However, before you start using a SWOT Analysis template and check out SWOT analysis examples, it is important to understand what this analytical method is all about.

What SWOT Analysis is in simple words

What is SWOT Analysis? This analysis is used to list down favorable and unfavorable factors that go against a particular situation.

SWOT analyzes Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that are associated with a situation by considering all the internal and external aspects of the business and market. This way, business managers can understand whether a situation has enough aspects in its favor and ultimately worth being pursued.

This assessment technique has a remarkable track record of success, providing almost accurate and extremely helpful insights to a business’ resources. To help you understand better how it works, it may be a good idea to look at some SWOT Analysis examples.

Here is an example of a SWOT Analysis table that was actually carried out by Dell in the mid 90’s to analyze its market position:

Strengths:	Weaknesses:
Selling products directly to the customers Keeping costs below that of competitors Higher responsiveness to customer demands	No partnerships or strong relationships with computer retailers

Opportunities:	Threats:
Desire of customers for one-stop shopping Customers’ increasing knowledge about what they want in computers Internet as a marketing tool	Stronger brand name of competitors like IBM and Compaq Strong relationship of competitors with retailers

Try more general SWOT analysis examples

For more general SWOT Analysis examples, here is one with some general entries. You can let the factors relevant to your situation stay while removing and adding accordingly:

Strengths:	Weaknesses:
Have an excellent staff for handling sales with strong knowledge of current products Strong customer relationships Strong internal communications system A strong geographical location with high traffic input Well-designed and successful marketing strategies Business reputation of being innovative	Too many missed deadlines and a lot of work on pending High cost of rental for the office Infrequent cash flow system Too much stock in inventory and higher inventory costs An inefficient record maintenance system in place Outdated market research data
Opportunities:	Threats:
Products similar to yours in the market are expensive or of poor quality Customers in the market are loyal Seasonal high demand of the product High demand for product or similar merchandise	A lot of competitors in the market with similar products A new advertising campaign launched by competitors A competitor opening new shop in a nearby location A downturn in economy and less spending budget of people

With these SWOT Analysis examples, you can easily understand how you can use this to analyze a business situation in a comprehensive way. After careful analysis, you can determine whether a new venture have enough positives in its favor to be pursued.

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