Forword: Terms and conditions

Please contact Cymeon if you have any questions regarding use of this software within your organization or if you have any difficulties with it.

© Cymeon, 2002. Copyright includes Manual and Software. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced in any format without the prior written permission of Cymeon. ISBN 898589 05 4.

Cymeon  has made every effort to ensure that the SWOT Software is of the highest standard, but can accept no liability in terms of correctness, accuracy, reliability, currentness or otherwise. The entire liability of Cymeon and your exclusive remedy shall be a full replacement of the software (at the discretion of Cymeon management).  Cymeon does not warrant that this software is useful for any particular purpose, and furthermore Cymeon does not take responsibility for decisions made as a result of using this software. Users are advised to consult with experts in their field before making decisions. For generic terms and conditions see here.

Chapter 1: Introduction to SWOT analysis

Swot analysis is a dynamic process of decision making with many applications in organizations and other applied fields SWOT analysis highlights the key issues, and the links between issues, which are related to a problem. It is by understanding the key issues that a solution to a problem can be achieved.

The business of management today is characterised by complex issues and continuous change. Frequently the related decisions and actions are characterised by trying to understand the complexity of the issues involved so that an appropriate decision can be made. Whilst this kind of applied decision making is not an exact science, SWOT analysis is internationally known as a method of understanding the issues which are involved. In doing so, ideas can be shared between managers and even integrated into a wider picture for subsequent analysis.

  Issues are divided into four categories:

1.      Strengths

2.      Weaknesses

3.      Opportunities

4.      Threats

Strengths and Weaknesses are usually defined as Internal Issues, which have an influence on the problem, and Opportunities and Threats are usually External Issues.

The decision makers decides which issues are and in which category they belong and then assesses them in terms of Impact and Likelihood. The importance of the issues is then computed as Likelihood x Impact which is a standard approach to determining subjective risk. 

The aim of SWOT analysis is to:

•      Build Upon Strengths
•      Eliminate Weaknesses
•      Exploit Opportunities
•      Mitigate the effects of Threats

To carry out a SWOT Analysis you must identify your own issues. Some of the key points to consider can be obtained by writing down answers to the following questions:

Strengths:

• What are your advantages intrinsic to your business?
• What do you do well?

Weaknesses:

• What could be improved that you do?
• What is done badly?
• What should be avoided?

Opportunities

• Where are the good chances facing you?
• What are the interesting trends?

Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

• Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale
• Changes in government policy related to your field
• Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, etc.
• Local Events

Threats

• What obstacles do you face?
• What is your competition doing?
• Are the required specifications for your job, products or services changing?
• Is changing technology threatening your position?
• Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?

2.1 Background

Over the last decade most organizations have been experiencing unprecedented pressures to improve their performance.  There is a growing emphasis upon analysing and evaluation performance.   Typically, performance evaluation involves identifying, generating and justifying decisions leading to organizational change.   The results of such examination are then applied to the development of strategic plans for the future.   Finding an effective evaluative and analytical technique to aid the decision-making process is therefore fundamentally important to all organizations seeking to improve their performance.

The word “analysis” originates from the Greek language, meaning to separate into parts, loosen and dissolve.   A SWOT analysis does this by ‘peeling back layers of the company’ (Williams, 1996) and is widely used in many organizations.  The initials of the acronym and mnemonic ‘SWOT’ represent the four factors of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.   In an organization, a SWOT analysis involves pinpointing these areas to assist managers in identifying the key facts, thereby giving them a focus on what needs to be tackled and an awareness of the relevant opportunities and possible threats.  Williams (1996) claims that effective business leaders are people who live ‘in a world of SWOT’, as they will be individuals who will have access to the right information so that they can act on maximising opportunities and attempt to avoid threats.  As such, SWOT analysis is recommended by some as a prime tool of analysis (Hatton et al., 1992).

Within SWOT analysis, the Strengths and Weaknesses are seen as internal factors which are controllable, and can be acted upon (e.g. staff turnover, organizations image).   The Opportunities and Threats are external, uncontrollable factors.  These form the external environment within which the organization operates and may include demographics, rates of interest,  changes in legislation etc. (Hatton et al, 1992).  It is the opinion of some that for a company which desires to grow, the objective appraisal of strengths and weaknesses should be high on the list of necessary activities (Ansoff, 1956;  Cordiner, 1956; Leavitt, 1965 etc).  A major objective for many managers is the identification of threats and opportunities through environmental scanning (Jackson and Dutton, 1998).  The fundamental principles of SWOT analysis therefore seem to play an integral part within the organization domain.

SWOT analysis has also been referred to under names of other acronyms or mnemonics.  Gray and Smeltzer (1989) refer to a ‘WOTS-UP’ analysis.  This is similarly divided into the external analysis of opportunities and threats, and the internal analysis of strengths and weaknesses.  Gray and Smeltzer claim that their WOTS-UP analysis should ‘suggest strategies for the firm and supply information for evaluating alternative strategies’.  This should lead to the choosing of an optimal strategic plan.  Alternatively, to some people it is known as a ‘TOWS’ analysis where the emphasis is more upon environmental factors (threats and opportunities) than on those which are internal (Hindle, 1994).

2.2 Methodology

The technique of SWOT analysis involves constructing a grid of four quadrants (one quadrant labelled for each factor).   A group of people (generally of managerial status or above) then come together to identify and generate items which fall into each of the four factors.  By involving groups of people in the SWOT process it is possible to gain access to information that may otherwise not be available and consequently, SWOT analysis is a form of brainstorming.  Drawing up a grid and limiting the list of items to those that matter, focuses attention on to the key issues and enables a summary of the key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to emerge.  For example, through using SWOT analysis on a company’s communication, a perspective can be gained of what needs to change or develop and what effective commodities need to remain (Williams, 1996).  The research therefore suggests that SWOT analysis is useful in helping to asses a situation.  It also has use in comparing alternatives when making a decision, and thus can be used in forming a business strategy.

Most of the literature concerning SWOT analysis is found within the field of strategic management. In deciding upon a strategy, SWOT analysis is used to look at the organization’s current performance (strengths and weaknesses) and what factors in the external environment (opportunities and threats) might affect the organization’s future. Thompson (1994) defines the four factors of SWOT analysis in relation to strategic management. The opportunities that need to be identified are those which can be maximised to ‘fit the organization’s values and resources’. The important threats are ones that the organization is not well equipped to deal with. The key strengths relate to elements of success such as a strong competitive position. In contrast, key weaknesses are those which prevent the organization from achieving that competitive advantage (Thompson 1994). The suitability of an option should relate to how well it overcomes the difficulties identified (resource weaknesses and environmental threats) and if it exploits the company strengths and environmental opportunities (Johnson and Scholes, 1984).   Within corporate planning and strategic management, SWOT analysis should only focus on ‘the crucial issues considered to represent the major factors in relative success or failure over the next 5,10, or even 20 years’ (Cole, 1986).   In addition to examining current performance and predicting future success, SWOT analysis can also be used to analyse past failures. Consequently, it is claimed that the real value of a SWOT analysis lies in the implications that arise from it as opposed to the actual solution itself (Clarke-Hill & Glaister, 1991).

Apart from its broader organizational application SWOT analysis can also have personal use for individuals .  Buhler (1997) argues for the use of SWOT analysis in career management, claiming that individuals need to know their own strengths so that their ‘competitive advantage’ can be built upon these.  Identifying weaknesses highlights areas that need to be improved and developed.  Opportunities are identified by studying the environment  (recruitment advertisements, newspapers) and discovering what is available (e.g. appropriate positions, a gap in the market).  The threats are aspects which prevent career goals being attained, identifying opportunities and threats enables better preparation (for interviews, business plans).  The strengths must then be matched with the opportunities identified, and the chosen opportunities should be those which minimise the threats.  Buhler (1997) maintains that a SWOT analysis helps the individual to form a career strategy and highlights and direction to take so that these goals can be met.

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2.3 Summary

The inference is that SWOT analysis helps to portray a situation, identify what information is needed and what decisions are likely to be required (on a personal or an organization level).  When making decisions within an organization the best solution needs to be identified as opposed to the first solution.  This means taking time to consider alternatives, and a SWOT analysis will facilitate this.  Once options have been evaluated and compared using SWOT analysis, the aim is to reduce the list of options.  At this point a decision can then be made between them.

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Chapter 3: Using the Cymeon SWOT Software

3.1               Introduction

The SWOT Software has been designed to be easy and intuitive to use. The following guidelines are all that are required for you to operate the software. >To be able to understand how to get the most out of the software will require detailed reading of all sections of this report as well as practical experience.We strongly believe that SWOT analysis is a dynamic process in which you can explore and change the issues to see a problem in a new light. We offer these opportunities as well as options for importing issues of other people into the overall process.

3.2        Help

            Please e-mail us and  we shall be pleased to provide you with free of charge assistance.

3.3.       Installation

Simply unzip the package into a new folder and double-click the “SWOT.exe” icon.  You will initially start in DEMO mode, allowing you only a limited number of issues per analysis.  To register the software, click the “HELP/REGISTER” menu selection and either e-mail Cymeon for pricing information and invoice orders, or click the “Register” button to open up the on-line credit card purchasing system.

3.4 Getting started - the major commands

Once into the program, the following screen is viewed. Select either BEGIN NEW >or LOAD EXISTING. These options allow you to begin a NEW SWOT analysis, or LOAD an existing SWOT analysis

If you choose NEW SWOT, then you will be presented with a series of questions that define the problem:

Enter a name that describes the SWOT Analysis	Standard defines three time frames called Current, Short term, Long term. This will divide the important issues up into those that you will face Currently, in the near future and those which are more long term. If you choose Custom, then you can define your own time frames.

Once into the main programme, select FILE. You will notice new options on the right side of the SWOT frame including OPEN SESSION, CLOSE SESSION, SAVE SESSION and IMPORT SESSION. IMPORT imports an existing analysis into a current one and ensures that they can be differentiated by adding special suffixes. This option is useful if several people are doing the same SWOT analysis independently and an administrator wishes to compare results and integrate them. The administrator can decide which of the imported options can be kept and which overlap and should be deleted.

This SWOT frame provides most of the options that you need at a glance. You can move across different SWOT windows by selecting the options down the left hand side of the screen. SORT allows you to sort the issues according to various criteria, PRINT ISSUES prints the issues to your current browser so that they can be imported into other software or printed. HELP provides access to this manual either on-line or locally.

3.5 Adding, deleting or editing issues and time-frames

Simply ‘right select’ using your mouse within the main window of the SWOT frame and choose the appropriate option

Follow the menu driven wizard to achieve the desired outcome.  When adding a new issue, remember that you assess the likelihood that the issue will happen (i.e. the probability) and the severity of the impact. Then what is shown in the Importance window is the result of multiplying one with the other:

As you pass your mouse cursor over an issue, you will see these three factors summarized.

If an issue occurs over more than one timeframe, then you will need to include the issue each time that it is required.

3.6 Editing and deleting the issues

‘Left select’ on an issue to edit its details. ‘Right select’ on an issue to move it to a different time frame or SWOT window. You may also delete an issue here.

3.7 Sorting the issues

Choose SORT from the WinSWOT menu to sort the issues in the SWOT windows by Importance, Likelihood or Impact.

3.8 Final analysis

Choose FINAL ANALYSIS from the VIEW menu of the WinSWOT window to make an overall assessment of the SWOT analysis.>

This is the final key window of the SWOT analysis as it tells you how the balance between Strengths vs Weaknesses and Opportunities vs Threats will be effect the problem as it is resolved.

The sum of the importance terms for each of the four types of issue is calculated. For example:>

Strengths = Sum (Likelihood x Impact) for all the issues in that timezone.

The point plotted is simply the difference between the sum of the importances for strengths minus weaknesses (the ‘y’ coordinate) and the sum of the importances for opportunities minus threats (the ‘x’ coordinate).

So what does this provide? Basically, it tells you overall where you’ll be with regard to the balance between strengths vs weakness and opportunities vs threats.  This is important information as it tells you how you will be proceeding through the problem during its resolution. It maybe for example that threats will be highlighted in the short-term, but overall you will be in a position of strength in the longer term. By highlighting these points, we can highlight points for concern during problem resolution. We might also decide that issues have been wrongly allocated to timeframes or each of the quadrants by looking at the overall analysis. By comparing different solutions, we might be able to spread problem issues over different time periods or concentrate issues into one time period in order to improve problem resolution.

“Riskiness”:  The Importance of each issue is composed of an Impact score, and a Likelihood score.  Normally the overall Importance score is an equal weighting of these two scores.  In the final analysis, however, it is possible to take a more conservative view of the results, such that the Likelihood of an event is weighted less than its Impact.  The slider bar allows you to select the weight of the Likelihood scores, from zero (very conservative "worst case" view; such that only Impact scores are relevant) to 100 (equal weighting of Impact and Likelihood).  This allows you to view the “worst case scenario” at zero in which all issues have a likelihood of one of happening, as well as the most likely scenario, dynamically on the same dataset.> Leave in its default setting if you do not want to use this.

Results can be sent to your browser so that they can be imported into different software or printed by selecting the option at the bottom of the screen.

The figure below shows how the direction of the vector connecting the different timeframes can lead to very different results of the SWOT analysis. The graphical representation represents a powerful way of summarizing the main conclusions of the analysis:

3.9 Importing profiles

One of the ways in which SWOT analysis is most useful is in combining issues from different people. Now this is not something which is easily done automatically and really requires the expert assistance of a SWOT coordinator. The IMPORT function under FILE provides the option of importing a person’s SWOT analysis into an existing one. Issues and timezones are imported as they are but with a prefix for identification. It is then a job of the administrator to merge the two (or more) SWOT analyses into something that coherently draws upon the differing solutions, although of course the administrator may wish to do other things with the merged data than just this.

3.10 Upgrading from the demo

In the initial demonstration mode, the user is restricted to be able to use just a small number of issues. Should you wish to unlock the demo mode into full unlimited use then please purchase the swoftware. This can easily be done from REGISTER which is under HELP in the main menu.

Purchase is by credit card over the internet using our secure server. Please note that payment is authorised by Worldpay and we never see your credit card details. You may also purchase the software by cheque once an invoice has been raised – please email and we will be pleased to tell you how this is done.

Registration proceeds as follows. You provide us with the ID number of the software (at our website or by email). Once payment has been made, we provide you with the registration code to unlock the demo mode.

4.1 Introduction

This chapter contains a few example SWOT analyses to help put the procedure into perspective. Note that these are real examples and contain their own biases and classification mistakes – whilst you read, be critical! This will help you understand the principles.

4.2  SWOT Analysis: Communications and Culture in a University Department

4.2.1 Where do we want to go?

The purpose of this SWOT analysis is threefold. To:

1.   discuss the strengths and weaknesses of communication within and from the department.

2.   set this appraisal within the context of current departmental culture,

3.   suggest how we might define a new departmental culture to help realise the longer term goals for the department.

We need to come to a collective agreement/vision as to what sort of department we want to be. We can then devise a communications strategy that serves to help us achieve this. Then we will know what we want to communicate, to whom, why, with what intended effects, and what are our priorities and resources. I believe that that this is our greatest shortcoming and failure at the moment. If we can get the culture and the communication right internally, the achievement of our longer-term departmental goals will be all the more likely, and it will be easier to communicate clear, consistent and persuasive messages externally.

Some of the issues I have raised impact upon research, resources and teaching. This is inevitable as future strategies for teaching, research and enterprise presuppose certain kinds of developments in relation to our communications.

4.2.2 Where are we now?

What sort of organizational culture do we currently have in the department? Is it the right one? Does working in the department feel like rowing or a tug of war match? Is it a culture which encourages and brings out the best in people? The note sent round after the Postgraduate Conference may reflect quite accurately the current state of affairs:>

‘The only sad thing was that certain groups in the Department (both staff and students) did not feel that the event deserved to be high on their list of priorities and did not attend the conference. This is a real shame. A lot of people had put a lot of work and time into organising the event and students had put a lot of effort into preparing their presentations. Given the important contribution that our doctoral students make to the research activities of, and in general the life of, the department those of us who did make the effort to find the time to attend find this type of attitude rather disappointing. Anyway, let's hope that next year more of us can make the time to attend ....’

It begins by recognising the hard work put in by a few people, the poor response by the majority and ends on the wishful hope that next year may be better. This seems to capture extremely well many areas of endeavour and activity in the department. There is an attitude, referred to later as, ‘it doesn’t apply to me’ which permeates throughout the department - amongst teaching staff, PhD and other postgraduate students, secretarial staff and technicians - no one is immune from it. In everybody’s defence, staff are working extremely hard, there are pressures between teaching, research and administration; there are conflicts in time and energy allocation to professional practice and research; there are conflicting needs and demands by different organizations and audiences.

How can we create a culture that recognises, accommodates and supports these different demands? What kind of culture would be desirable such that it would encourage within all staff (teaching, research, secretarial, technicians) an awareness and support for the mission, goals, values and procedures of the department?

4.2.3 Teaching granny…….

Why is an agreed organizational culture important? It provides a set of common goals on which staff can act every day. This would bring a coherence to the Department, and allow better co-ordinated action. By removing ambiguity in the what's, how's, and why's, a common culture permits staff to understand the basic values and purposes of the Department/University and provides them with opportunities to make decisions that fall within those parameters. That means, for example, that more decisions can be devolved to lower levels (i.e., subsidiarity) replacing current higher level decision-making or no decision-making at all. This is all the more important now the department is so large with +40 members of staff.>

The benefits are:

•       permits staff to make more decisions since they have the tools and knowledge needed to make the "right" decisions.  
•       encourages a sense of identification amongst staff with the goals, mission and procedures of the department which can result in a sense of "making a difference" which can then have a direct impact on effort and efficiency.  
•       has the potential for reducing day-to-day conflict - conflict is often generated by conflicting ideas on what is important to the department and what are the priorities>

Successful organizations create an organizational culture through the use of strategic, co-ordinated communication strategies. They use multiple methods, consistently. Staff development supports cultural goals, as does written communication (e.g. newsletters). Their management communicates consistently with common messages in a number of forums (e.g. department or sub-organization meetings, research group meetings, etc.). Management behaviour is consistent with the messages echoed via other communication methodologies.

If we want to create a department of staff who are working towards the same goals and by the same rules, internal communication is the key to bringing this about. It won't happen unless we are proactive in our communication and co-ordinate our efforts so they convey consistent messages.

4.2.4 How?

1.   Identify the common culture needed/wanted. We need a quick internal cultural audit of the present situation

2.   Identify the available communication tools

3. Determine what tools are suited to which goals

4. Develop a description of how each tool will be used so that the means supports the creation of the desired culture.

5. Plan for implementation

7. Implement

8. Continuously monitor, permit feedback and revise

4.2.5 SWOT Analysis

The remainder of this paper is a SWOT Analysis of our current communications divided into Internal (within the Department) and External (within the University; other similar Departments; potential research clients; potential students; the public).

Internal

Strengths

• Appointment of Communications Officer who provides the enthusiasm, skills, knowledge and time
• Good facilities for broadcasting information (i.e., one-way)
• An email system that is better than it was
• A communications Committee representing all interest groups in the Department
• An Intranet
• A Newsletter
• Good ‘top-down’ communication

Weaknesses

• Poor facilities for encouraging face to face contact and discussion
• Very few Departmental meetings at which all members of Department’s voice can be heard
• No common area for staff to encourage collegiality
• Culture of ‘It doesn’t apply to me’
• email requests ignored; update web pages ignored
• meetings not attended (e.g., Exam Board)
• Requests for submissions to Newsletter. There is no consciousness of the question ‘who else needs or could benefit from knowing about this?’
• Consequently, weak collective identity
• Poor/inadequate welcome to the Department; no forward reference - ‘It’s not my job’ syndrome
• Lines of communication are unclear or ineffective
• No culture of ‘team working’
• Poor ‘bottom-up’ and ‘side-to-side’ communication
• Proper Welcome/Reception for visitors to the Department
• Regular Departmental meetings and other vehicles for encouraging discussion, involvement and participation.
• Build a stronger collective culture so that we are seen to be and are working together.
• Someone to take responsibility for day-to-day updating of Intranet site
• More collaboration between staff on research proposals - so that the ‘funding shy’ are supported and encouraged by those who are relatively successful. The development of research teams, even across interest areas - synergies can produce results. What structures and mechanisms need to be in place for this to work? Research Groups are too large a unit - groups of 3-5 may be optimal.
• It is not clear to those not on committees how they make an input into decisions and provide feedback concerning current practise. People know about the committees but not how to use them.

Threats                          

• Roles not allocated or misunderstood
• Staff not understanding communication and its role in both departmental culture and the achieve of short, medium and long term goals, or not taking it seriously

Strengths

• Newsletter - growing distribution to key people around University
• Good contacts with agencies finding funding
• Presence on School Communications Committee
• Better links with funding agencies

Weaknesses

• Representation on University Committees poor
• We don’t use funding agencies enough and they don’t understand our needs.
• Other Departments have a poor understanding of what we do and how, through collaboration, we could collectively benefit in respect of research grant applications
• Broaden circulation of newsletter
• Higher presence on University Committees
• Market ourselves more effectively leading to more research collaboration with other Departments and Schools
• Draw on strengths from within the School of Human Sciences to market our research skills more effectively outside the University.

Threats

• Other Departments and Schools benefit from access and control of central resources - leaving us being a major financial contributor to them but not benefiting.

4.2.7     With Other Departments

Strengths

• Adverts in places professional magazines alerts peers to our breadth
• Extensive visiting speakers programmes
• Quite good networking with colleagues elsewhere
• WWW site getting better
• Poor representation non External Committees
• Professional membership amongst staff?
• WWW site still fails to communicate what we are really about in a clear, immediate and succinct way

Opportunities

• An information pack to be given to all visitors to the Department about research, teaching, consultancy and industry/government advisory activities
• More research collaboration with other Universities to form networks/partners
• Extend visiting speakers programme into under-represented areas, e.g., occupational
• Seek election/appointment onto external committees.
• More staff to seek Associate Fellowship/Fellowship of the BPS
• Explore potential for collaboration with colleagues in other departments
• Organising one day conferences or courses (e.g., like Sociology) on particular themes - high impact/minimal input.
• Improve website

• Staff consider these kinds of a activities (external committees) as unrecognised or not worthwhile
• Staff don’t have the necessary information to make the collaborative links
• Staff don’t have the necessary administrative support
• Staff over-committed and don’t have time.

4.2.8     Potential Research Clients

• Good track record in research
• Good links with some organizations
• Building Research Establishment.

Weaknesses

• Don’t publish research in professional journals which are read by potential funders/clients
• Certain areas under-represented in research profile.
• WWW site very poor in terms of promoting and telling our research story

Opportunities

• A levy of, say, 5% on the overheads which comes to the Department could be allocated to publicity, promotion and marketing
• A copywriter/journalist is employed on a per need basis to write articles for professional journals (i.e., those publications which incur no academic/RAE benefits but which reach potential clients)
• A copywriter is employed to re-write some our web pages to make them meet the interests and needs of our audience, not the writing abilities of our own staff.
• Research and Consultancy Brochure
• Need to develop closer and long term relationships with other funding organizations (public, private and charitable sectors) in order to ensure a relatively constant income stream.
• Urgent need to upgrade the WWW site

Threats

• Approximately 85% of current research income generated by 8 staff members. Why is this? Is it because some colleagues are not aware of funding opportunities? Is it because they perceive government/industrial money (as opposed to Research Council money) as being less valuable. Is it because they would rather teach?

4.2.9     Potential Students

Strengths

•       Excellent new brochures and leaflets recently produced - written with the audience in mind.
•       Distinctive ‘housestyle’ emerging for publicity material
•       Popular subject
•       High rankings in key indicators
•       High conversion rate of enquiry to application in some areas

Weaknesses

•       Website not attractive to students
•       Poor promotion by some Course Directors of their courses - not seen as their responsibility
•       Poorly served by central services who have dated knowledge and little understanding of the postgraduate market.
•       Low awareness within the University

Opportunities

•         Employment of copywriter (as above)
•         improve calibre of intake
•         Need for implementable research to be undertaken to reflects students’ needs so that we can build our promotion and marketing campaigns around these.

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4.3  Example issues at a Strategic level

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Chapter 5: Overcoming difficulties as you learn SWOT analysis

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5.1 Difficulties in SWOT analysis

Organizational decision makers regularly have to identify important issues. These are often ambiguous and frequently need interpretation as to whether they are opportunities or threats (McCaskey, 1982; Daft and Weick, 1984; Sayles, 1964; Mintzberg, 1973).   Glass (1991) believes that, depending on a person’s attitude, a number of threats can also be interpreted as opportunities. For example, some businesses see the growing demand for environmentally sound products as a threat, in contrast others view it as a good business opportunity (Glass 1991). It is also believed that the predispositions to perceive threat distort the perceptions of evidence so that many possible future events are viewed as probable threat (Pruitt, 1965).

Stevenson (1976) reported that individuals’ cognitive perceptions of  the strengths and weaknesses of an organization were strongly influenced by factors within the individual and not only by the organizations’ attributes.  Stevenson found that position in the organization, perceived role and type of responsibility influenced the individual’s assessment of strengths and weaknesses so strongly that it tended to submerge the objective reality of the situation.  organizational elements were increasingly perceived as strengths the higher the level of evaluator.   In addition, Stevenson also found that most attributes of companies were both strengths and weaknesses.  In performing a SWOT analysis these different, often biased, perceptions of strengths and weaknesses and the ambiguity of many issues may lead to incorrect classification and categorisation.  As a result inaccurate decisions may be made.

Another problem that might arise is the misuse of SWOT analysis to defend a previously decided course of action (Glass, 1991).  Items generated by an individual may be biased towards his or her current viewpoint (e.g. producing more strengths and opportunities than weaknesses and threats).  Often an individual has already chosen a course of action before publicly declaring his or her decision.  Research has demonstrated that people look for information that supports their decision and actively avoid that which does not (Brock & Bolloun, 1967; Lowin 1967, 1969).  Festinger (1957, 1964) defines this phenomenon as bolstering;  when the attractiveness of the chosen alternative is magnified in decision making.   Bolstering that occurs in groups involves a tendency to rely on rationalisations that bolster the least objectionable alternative.   Additionally, Nemeth and Rogers (1996) found that in decision making, individuals normally favoured information that was consistent with the majority position.   A SWOT analysis is likely to exacerbate the bolstering phenomenon in an individual or group by giving the opportunity to visually reinforce positive biases using the SWOT analysis grid (e.g. producing a greater number of strengths and opportunities than weaknesses and threats).

It is also possible that SWOT analysis could facilitate ‘Groupthink’.   This is defined by Janis (1972) as ‘a mode of thinking that happens in a cohesive group where the member’s strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative course of action’.   For example, in a similar way to that proposed for Bolstering the SWOT analysis sheet could become a visual cue and opportunity for the group to generate more items to support the group’s decisional direction. Janis claims that group decision making has many negative effects including over optimism, lack of vigilance and ‘sloganistic thinking’ about the weaknesses of outside entities. This could also contribute to a lack of items being placed in the weaknesses and threats categories.

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5.2 Overcoming these problems

A final point to stress is that the more you think about the issues, the clearer the solution will become. It is the process of overcoming the difficulties, specific to the problem, which will clarify the question and thereby provide the answer

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Please let us know

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• Ansoff, H. (1956). In: Stevenson H (1976).  Defining Corporate Strengths and Weaknesses.  Sloan Management Review, 17, 51-6
• Brock, T. & Bolloun J. (1967) In: Nemeth C & Rogers J (1996).  Dissent and the search for information.  British Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 67-7
• Buhler, P. (1997). ‘Managing the 90’s. Supervison, 58, (5), 24-26.
• Clarke-Hill, C. & Glaister, K. (1991).  Cases in Strategic Management.  London Pitman Publishing
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