SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The idea behind SWOT is that a good strategy exploits an organization’s opportunities and strengths while neutralizing threats and avoiding or correcting weaknesses. 

You’ve just been hired to run a medium-size company that manufactures electric motors, circuit breakers, and similar electronic components for industrial use. In recent years, the firm’s financial performance has gradually eroded, and your job is to turn things around. 

At one time, the firm was successful in part because it was able to charge premium prices for top-quality products. In recent years, however, management has tried cutting costs as a means of bringing prices in line with those of new competitors in the market. Unfortunately, the strategy hasn’t worked very well, with the effect of cost cutting being primarily a fall-off in product quality. Convinced that a new strategy is called for, you’ve decided to begin with a SWOT analysis.

Exercise Task 

Reviewing the situation, you take the following steps: 

1. List the sources that you’ll use to gather information about the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

2. Then ask yourself: For what types of information are data readily available online? What categories of data are difficult or impossible to find online? (Note: When using online resources, be sure to provide specific websites or URLs.) 

3. Next, rate each source that you consult in terms of probable reliability. Finally, ask yourself how confident you’d be in basing decisions on the information that you’ve obtained.