Building capacity SWOT analysis tool
- What is a SWOT Analysis?
A SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Member Association’s Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying the Opportunities open to you and the Threats that you face. What makes SWOT particularly powerful is that, with a little thought, you can discover opportunities that your Member Association is well-placed to exploit. And by understanding your weaknesses, you can limit or eliminate threats that would otherwise undermine your Member Association.
More than this, by looking at your Member Association and your competitors using the SWOT framework, you can build a strategy that helps differentiate you from your competitors, so that you can compete successfully in your market. Words in bold colour and underlined are further tools that you will find in Appendices at the end of this document, or online.
- How to use a SWOT Analysis
Tip
- Look at your Member Association’s strengths and see if they present any opportunities
- Look at your Member Association’s weaknesses and see if you could open up opportunities by eliminating them
- Look at your Member Association’s threats and see if any can be turned into opportunities
Your Member Association can use a SWOT Analysis (i) as a simple icebreaker helping people to ‘kick off’ a strategy discussion, or (ii) in a more sophisticated and meaningful way as a serious strategy tool. To help you to carry out your analysis, download and print off the worksheet in Appendix I.
- Further SWOT tips
If you are using SWOT as a serious tool, make sure you apply it rigorously:
- only accept precise, verifiable statements, for example ‘cost advantage of $10/box of contraceptives’, rather than ‘good value for money’
- ruthlessly cut long lists of factors, and prioritize them, so that you spend your time thinking about the most important factors
- use the SWOT analysis in conjunction with other strategy tools (for example, USP Analysis and Core Competence Analysis ) so that you get a comprehensive picture of the situation you’re dealing with
Tip
When looking at opportunities and threats, a PESTLE Analysis (which looks at Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Legal and Environmental issues) can help you include external factors you may otherwise overlook, for example government regulations or technological changes – see more in Appendix III