SWOT Analysis: A Powerful Tool of Strategic Competitive Management Effectiveness

Britain is one of the world’s most open economies. Most dependent on trade than any other major country. Our success depends on our competitiveness and our competitiveness depends on raising our productivity, as our competitors are raising theirs.’ -Philip Hammond (British Conservative Party Politician) Globalization has sharpened the level of competition, i.e., domestic and international both. In this cut-throat competitive era, a company must have to acquire the ability to provide products and services as or more effectively and efficiently than their relevant competitors. The main challenge is how to take advantage of new resources and markets while dealing with intense and growing global competition. The need of the hour is to design and implement supportive policies and strategies to compete with the competitors. In this context, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis has been a useful tool to face the competition and to achieve future growth. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the organization along with the opportunities and threats present in the market in which it operates in SWOT analysis requires an internal survey for strengths and weaknesses and external survey for opportunities and threats. This analysis can be used as a strategic planning approach to face the competition and as well as to enhance the managerial effectiveness of the organization. This article proposes the application of the SWOT tool for making strategies to enhance competitive organizational potential. The researcher has attempted to get insight into the wide range of potential applications of SWOT analysis. A brief discussion has been made about the limitations of SWOT analysis. ‘The essential element of a successful strategy is that it derives its success from the differences between competitors with a consequent difference in their behavior.’ -Bruce Henderson