Analyze your strategic position by identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Add items to each quadrant and drag to reorganize.
SWOT Analysis helps you understand your current position by examining internal capabilities and external environment. Use this framework to inform strategic decisions and develop action plans.
Internal advantages - what you do well, valuable resources, unique capabilities, and competitive edges that set you apart.
Internal limitations - areas needing improvement, resource gaps, skill deficiencies, and factors putting you at a disadvantage.
External possibilities - favorable trends, market gaps, partnership potentials, and emerging technologies you can leverage.
External challenges - competitive pressures, market changes, economic risks, and regulatory issues that could impact you.
SWOT Analysis is a versatile strategic planning tool used across industries for both organizational and personal decision-making. It provides a structured way to assess your current situation before making important decisions or changes.
Organizations typically use SWOT during strategic planning cycles, when entering new markets, launching products, evaluating partnerships, or responding to competitive threats. The framework helps teams align on current realities and identify the most promising paths forward.
For individuals, SWOT is valuable for career planning, job interviews (understanding your value proposition), starting a business, or making major life decisions. The structured format helps you think systematically rather than letting emotions or assumptions drive important choices.
A tech startup uses SWOT to evaluate entering a new market segment. They identify their innovative technology (S), limited brand recognition (W), growing market demand (O), and established competitors (T) to develop a focused go-to-market strategy.
A professional considering a career change maps their transferable skills (S), experience gaps (W), industry growth trends (O), and economic uncertainty (T) to make an informed decision about timing and preparation.
A product team analyzes their flagship product with strong user loyalty (S), aging technology stack (W), AI integration possibilities (O), and new competitor offerings (T) to prioritize their roadmap.
SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning framework that helps you evaluate a situation by examining four key elements: Strengths (internal positive factors), Weaknesses (internal negative factors), Opportunities (external positive factors), and Threats (external negative factors). It was developed in the 1960s at Stanford Research Institute and remains one of the most widely used business analysis tools today.
Use SWOT Analysis when starting a new business or project, entering a new market, evaluating your competitive position, making strategic decisions, or planning for the future. It is particularly valuable during annual planning sessions, before major investments, when facing significant changes in your industry, or when you need to communicate your strategic position to stakeholders.
Internal factors (Strengths and Weaknesses) are things within your control - your skills, resources, processes, and capabilities. External factors (Opportunities and Threats) are things outside your direct control - market conditions, competitors, regulations, economic trends, and technological changes. This distinction helps you focus on what you can change versus what you must adapt to.
After completing your SWOT, develop strategies that leverage your strengths to pursue opportunities (SO strategies), use strengths to counter threats (ST strategies), improve weaknesses to capture opportunities (WO strategies), and minimize weaknesses to avoid threats (WT strategies). Prioritize actions based on impact and feasibility, then create specific goals and timelines.
Absolutely. SWOT is valuable for career planning, job searches, personal development, and major life decisions. For example, when considering a career change, list your skills and experience (strengths), areas needing development (weaknesses), industry trends and opportunities (opportunities), and potential challenges like competition or economic factors (threats).
Explore other decision-making tools that complement SWOT Analysis.