Analyzing the Organization: Why SWOT?

Communication is key. We've all heard that one, right?

Communication: Learn It, Live It, Love It!

Communication is one of the biggest parts of having a successful organization, business, or brand. In order to have effective communication, strategists must be self aware and understand the highs and lows and ins and outs of their organization. If your business is in the top 25 rather than the top 10, that should be clearly recognized and used as a starting point. Three of the aspects that must be recognized are the internal environment, public perception, and external environment.

Internal Environment:

It is extremely important for an organization to be able to recognize their issues/things holding them back within itself, its structure, and its performance. This internal analysis can acknowledge what has been done well in the past and even make way for modifications that will generate further success in the future.

Public Perception:

Along with the analyzation of internal impediments and successes, strategists must also take into consideration the perception of their organizations by the public. There are two components to public perception, those being visibility and reputation. Visibility refers more to how much publics know about an organization and how accurate that information is. Reputation rather is the evaluation of this information and the long-term impression on publics as a whole. Having an organization that reflects well to the public eye is critical.

External Environment:

The last component of organization analysis is the external environment. This focuses on competitors, supporters, external impediments out of an organization's hands, and opponents. Supporters are obviously a huge portion of why an organization flourishes, but competitors and opponents are just as important. It is essential for strategists to highlight differences between their organizations and their closest competitors. As for opponents, they have the ability to get in the way of further success and limit abilities of their opposing organizations.

Self Awareness Is Important in Business And In Life

SWOT is a strategic tool that analyzes the different strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to an organization. Usually, when looking at these different sectors, internal and external factors alike are incorporated. If used effectively, this type of SWOT analysis can hopefully identify problems in an organization before they even arise. Something that is not always widely known is that a SWOT analysis should allude that the "organization itself is strong but that all weaknesses come from outside. Rather, it needs to be a candid assessment of the pressure points." If conducted correctly, the health of an organization can be determined by this analysis and identify factors which can have positive and negative impacts on success.