A little about SWOT

SWOT….Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The SWOT analysis technique is typically used during strategic planning to provide a concise summary of a strategic analysis. Typically, your strategic analysis will include an analysis of your three strategic environments, which are your

• internal environment,
• industry environment and its
• macro environment

In this article, you’ll learn all about identifying weaknesses, and to help you get started, we’ve also provided a list of common weaknesses. We’ll also show you how to avoid the common mistakes that are often made when categorizing weaknesses.

Now, let’s start by defining the term weakness in relation to your SWOT analysis.

Definition of a weakness

Corporate level weakness defined:A weakness is a core capability of your business where your competitors have an advantage over your business, which your customers value, ie you failed the test better than your competitors.

During your SWOT analysis, you will consider a variety of weaknesses within your business. It is important to note that all of these weaknesses will be internal to your business and all are found during your internal analysis.

The SWOT technique can also be used at the division, department, and team levels. By completing a team-level analysis, you need to identify strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of your internal customers.

Understand the weaknesses of the SWOT

Some possible weaknesses

There are two categories of weaknesses that you can identify in your business, both are equally valid and should have received equal consideration, these two categories are

1. Tangible weaknesses describe characteristics of your business that can be accurately identified, measured, or realized. (Usually you can touch them)
2. Intangible weaknesses, these describe features of your business that cannot be physically touched or physically measured (you cannot touch them)

Now that we’ve identified two categories of weaknesses, let’s take a look at some common tangible and intangible weaknesses that can be found in your business.

some possible tangible weaknesses what can you find in your business

• Old or obsolete plants and equipment. Old plants or equipment are often underpinned by equipment reliability issues or a general lack of competitiveness.
• Narrow product line
• Insufficient financial resources to finance the changes
• High costs (Not a high price, high costs refer specifically to the cost of bringing your product or service to market)
• Inferior technology or technology that has not kept pace with the customer’s or provider’s preferred transaction methods.
• Low volume or restricted in your ability to scale

some possible intangible weaknesseswhat can you find in your business

• Weak or unrecognizable brand
• Faint or unrecognizable image
• Bad relationships with your customers.
• Bad relationships with your suppliers.
• Bad relations with your employees.
• Marketing that does not meet the objectives
• inexperienced manager
• Low investment in research and development.
• Low knowledge of the industry
• Few innovative skills.

where people often go wrong

The most frequent error we see in a SWOT analysis with the categorization of environmental observations. This is particularly prevalent when weaknesses are identified.

It is common for weaknesses to be identified as an opportunity to resolve the weakness rather than as a weakness, and sometimes as a threat of the damage the weakness can cause.

For example

A poor relationship weakness with your employee could be written as an opportunity to improve labor relations or as a threat of industrial action by militant employees. It is important to categorize it as a weakness. Why?

It is important to categorize your weaknesses correctly as later on you will look for opportunities that take advantage of your strengths as these are your greatest strategic opportunities and threats that are exacerbated by your weaknesses as these are your greatest strategic risks.

If you have worded a weakness as an opportunity, there is a risk that you will not identify your strategic risks and properly prioritize action to mitigate these risks.

Another common problem with identifying a SWOT weakness is allowing personal preference to come into play. For example, if you’re a big fan of Apple computers but the company you work for doesn’t use them, it’s not valid to claim that the organization has a weakness for using inferior technology. It is only a weakness if the technology platform choice prevents your business from competing with your competitors.

And the final element is that managers are often reluctant to be open and honest about the weaknesses of the business they are running. They see it as a failure on their part. It is best to encourage leaders to be open and transparent about the weaknesses of their businesses, only by being open can you ask for help.

SWOT advice

By virtue of its name, the SWOT analysis technique is an analysis technique, NOT a solution technique. It’s hard to stay focused on analysis, but it’s important to do so. A comprehensive analysis is the perfect basis for making strategic decisions.

Once the SWOT analysis is complete, the next stage of strategic planning is to develop possible alternative courses of action.