SWOT analysis: Examples and templates

Looking for a way to separate your organization from the competition? A SWOT analysis is a technique for identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to develop a strategic plan or roadmap for your business. While it may sound difficult, it’s actually quite simple. 

Whether you’re looking for external opportunities or internal strengths, we’ll provide you with a template and walk you through how to perform your own SWOT analysis, with helpful examples along the way. 

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool for evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business, project, or goal. Teams and individuals use SWOT analysis to assess internal factors alongside external forces to make better decisions about priorities, risks, and next steps.

What does SWOT stand for?

SWOT is an acronym that stands for: 

• Strengths

• Weaknesses

• Opportunities

• Threats

When analyzed together, the SWOT framework can paint a clearer picture of where you are and guide your next steps.

What are the four components of SWOT analysis?

The SWOT framework breaks analysis into four distinct components that help you evaluate internal factors and external forces within your business environment. Each component addresses a different strategic question, which makes it easier to assess your current position before deciding what to do next.

1. Strengths

Strengths in SWOT refer to internal initiatives that are performing well. Examining these areas helps you understand what’s already working. You can then use the techniques that you know work—your strengths—in other areas that might need additional support, like improving your team’s efficiency. 

When looking into the strengths of your organization, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do we do well? Or, even better: What do we do best?

• What’s unique about our organization?

• What does our target audience like about our organization?

• Which categories or features beat out our competitors?

Example SWOT strength: Our world-class customer service has an NPS of 90, compared to competitors' average NPS of 70.

2. Weaknesses

Weaknesses in SWOT refer to internal initiatives. It’s a good idea to analyze your strengths before your weaknesses to establish a baseline for success and failure. Identifying internal weaknesses provides a starting point for improving those projects.

Identify the company’s weaknesses by asking:

• Which initiatives are underperforming and why?

• What can be improved?

• What resources could improve our performance?

• How do we rank against our competitors?

Example SWOT weakness: Our website visibility is low because of a lack of marketing budget, leading to a decrease in mobile app transactions.

3. Opportunities

Opportunities in SWOT result from your existing strengths and weaknesses, along with any external initiatives that will put you in a stronger competitive position. These could be anything from weaknesses that you’d like to improve or areas that weren’t identified in the first two phases of your analysis. 

Since there are multiple ways to come up with opportunities, it’s helpful to consider these questions before getting started:

• What resources can we use to improve weaknesses?

• Are there market gaps in our services?

• What are our business goals for the year?

• What do your competitors offer?

Example SWOT opportunities: To improve brand visibility, we’ll run ad campaigns on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

4. Threats

Threats in SWOT are areas with the potential to cause problems. Unlike weaknesses, threats are external and out of your control. This can include anything from a global pandemic to a change in the competitive landscape. 

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to identify external threats:

• What changes in the industry are cause for concern?

• What new market trends are on the horizon?

• Where are our competitors outperforming us?

Example SWOT threats: With a new e-commerce competitor set to launch within the next month, we could see a decline in customers.

SWOT analysis example

A SWOT analysis often uses a SWOT matrix to organize strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats into four connected quadrants. This example of a SWOT analysis shows how teams evaluate internal and external factors side by side to support both strategic planning and decision-making processes.

This SWOT analysis example shows how each quadrant provides a specific type of insight within a single visual framework. Use the SWOT matrix below to compare your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats all at once.

How to do a SWOT analysis, with examples 

Teams often approach a SWOT analysis in different ways. However, the five steps of SWOT analysis provide a consistent template for thorough exploration. The five steps below guide teams from gathering ideas to evaluating insights and deciding on actions, whether the analysis occurs on a whiteboard, in a SWOT matrix, or through a facilitated discussion.

Step 1: Consider internal factors 

Often, an organization’s strengths and weaknesses stem from internal processes. These tend to be easier to solve since you have more control over the outcome. When you encounter internal factors, you can implement improvements in a couple of ways.

• Meet with department stakeholders to develop a business plan for improving your current situation.

• Research and implement new tools, such as a project management tool, to streamline these processes for you. 

• Take immediate action on anything that can be changed within 24 hours. If you don’t have the capacity, consider delegating these items to others with deadlines. 

The way you approach solving internal factors will depend on the type of problem. If it’s more complex, you might need to use a combination of the above or a more thorough problem management process.

Step 2: Evaluate external factors

External factors stem from processes outside of your control. This includes competitors, market trends, and anything else that’s affecting your organization from the outside in. 

External factors are trickier to solve, as you can’t directly control the outcome. However, you can pivot your processes to mitigate the impact of negative external factors.  You can work to solve these issues by:

• Competing with market trends

• Forecasting market trends before they happen

• Improving adaptability to improve your reaction time

• Track competitors using reporting tools that automatically update you as soon as changes occur 

While you won’t be able to control an external environment, you can control how your organization reacts to it. 

Let’s say, for instance, a competitor introduced a new product to the market that’s outperforming your own. While you can’t take that product away, you can work to launch an even better product or marketing campaign to mitigate any decline in sales. 

Step 3: Hold a brainstorming session

Brainstorming new and innovative ideas can help to spur creativity and inspire action. To host a high-impact brainstorming session, you’ll want to: 

• Invite team members from various departments. That way, ideas from each part of the company are represented. 

• Be intentional about the number of team members you invite, since too many participants could lead to a lack of focus or participation. The sweet spot for a productive brainstorming session is around 10 teammates. 

• Use different brainstorming techniques that appeal to different work types.

• Set a clear intention for the session.

Tip: Get creative

To generate creative ideas, you first have to invite them. That means creating fun ways to develop ideas. Try randomly selecting anonymous ideas, talking through obviously bad examples, or playing team-building games to psych up the team.

Step 4: Prioritize opportunities

Now, rank the opportunities. This can be done as a team or with a smaller group of leaders. Discuss each idea and rate it on a scale of one to 10. Once you’ve agreed on your top ideas based on team capabilities, skills, and overall impact, it becomes easier to implement them.

Step 5: Take action

It’s all too easy to feel finished at this stage, but the actual work is just beginning. After your SWOT analysis, you’ll have a list of prioritized opportunities. Now is the time to turn them into strengths. Use a system such as a business case, project plan, or implementation plan to outline what needs to get done and how you plan to do it.

SWOT analysis template

A SWOT analysis template is often presented in a grid format, divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant represents one of the four elements. Use this free SWOT analysis template to jump-start your team’s strategic planning.

Strengths

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Identify the strengths that help you achieve your objectives. These are internal characteristics that give you an advantage. Some examples could be a strong brand reputation, an innovative culture, or an experienced management team.

Weaknesses

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Next, focus on weaknesses. These are internal factors that could serve as obstacles to achieving your objectives. Common examples might include a lack of financial resources, high operational costs, or outdated technology. 

Opportunities

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Move on to the opportunities. These are external conditions that could be helpful in achieving your goals. For example, you might be looking at emerging markets, increased demand, or favorable regulatory changes.

Threats

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Lastly, let's address threats. These are external conditions that could negatively impact your objectives. Examples include increased competition or potential economic downturns.

What are the benefits of SWOT?

A SWOT analysis helps you assess a situation from different perspectives and make better decisions about what to do next. The framework transforms observations into a clear plan for action and execution.

• SWOT gives you a fast way to evaluate your position and pick priorities. Startups often use SWOT analysis to identify what drives progress and what hinders it in their workflows. Teams can achieve a lasting competitive advantage by aligning strengths with real market conditions.

• SWOT analysis strengthens business strategies by connecting internal reality to external conditions. Once you identify areas for improvement, you can work with team members to brainstorm an action plan.

• SWOT supports risk planning when teams track issues in a risk register. Teams can identify project risks early and adjust scope or timing before problems escalate by pairing SWOT with a PEST analysis.

• SWOT analysis helps teams understand how internal decisions affect outcomes across different contexts. Teams might use SWOT analysis in retail management to examine demand shifts or assess changes in their customer base. Teams that regularly revisit this analysis tend to excel at adapting to change.

What are common mistakes to avoid with SWOT analysis?

Teams weaken a SWOT analysis when they treat it as a documentation task rather than a strategic planning tool. Avoiding these SWOT mistakes will help you produce insights that lead to action.

• Relying on subjective opinions instead of evidence. Teams introduce bias when they rely on personal views instead of data or shared examples. Basing each point on facts improves accuracy and trust.

• Listing vague or generic statements. Teams weaken their analysis when they use broad statements without context. Specific observations foster better discussions and decisions.

• Mixing internal and external factors. Teams cause confusion when they place internal issues and external forces in the wrong categories.

• Treating SWOT as a one-time exercise. Regular updates align insights with changing conditions.

• Stopping without defining next steps. The framework works best when it guides priorities and execution.

Why is a SWOT analysis important?

A SWOT analysis is important because it helps individuals and organizations evaluate internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats within a single matrix. Unlike a competitive analysis, which mainly concentrates on external positioning, a SWOT analysis connects internal factors to real-world conditions to improve planning. People can also apply SWOT to personal goals by examining areas such as skills, communication habits, and leadership style.

When should you use a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis works best when you need a high-level view of a situation before making strategic decisions. Teams often use it to evaluate context, surface risks, and prioritize before committing resources or moving forward.

• Before implementing a major change, a SWOT should be part of a broader change management plan.

• When you launch a new company initiative, you need to assess readiness and risk.

• When you want to find opportunities for growth or improvement.

• When you need a comprehensive view of business performance from multiple perspectives.

Plan for growth with a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis can be an effective technique for identifying key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Understanding where you are now can be the most impactful way to determine where you want to go next. 

Don’t forget, a bit of creativity and collaboration can go a long way. Encourage your team to think outside the box with 100+ team motivational quotes.

FAQs about using SWOT analysis