Strategy Execution Tips: Turn Weaknesses into Strengths by Updating Your SWOT

June 2, 2010

A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis is often a necessary step at the beginning of a strategic planning process, and an updated SWOT can continue to yield results. A SWOT offers great guidance in how a strategic plan can be constructed, and keeping your SWOT up-to-date can also be instrumental in ensuring a plan stays relevant to the environment that a company operates within.

Prudent treatment of a SWOT in the planning process has the power to convert weaknesses into strengths and threats into opportunities during execution. In fact, this is exactly what your plan’s measurements should be communicating.

To keep your plan agile, consider weaving in SWOT-oriented updates to keep your plan agile. Sources of this type of data could come from:

• your customer feedback program,
• your HR department,
• or from competitor updates to name a few.

You will need to have methods identified that will help you effectively tap into your environment. When considering sources of this data, make sure that you are receiving a balanced diet of information: mine for strengths as intensely as weaknesses; opportunities as intensely as threats.

When determining your strategic plan implementation, make these updates part of your executive agenda template. Consistent approaches for collecting this feedback over time will aggregate into the type of information that you can rely and strategically act upon. By staying on top of what is occurring in your environment, and determining how that may affect strategy execution, you will be keeping your plan relevant.

Another important by-product of this exercise is that you will be increasing your capacity to react upon external trends or events when warranted. To adapt to any externality effectively requires a base of knowledge primed to absorb the details. In a rapidly changing environment, this equates to the development of a competitive advantage.

Finally, by continually adding outside feedback into your SWOT, it will make the next update of your strategic plan that much more effective. Your organization will have a more fundamental understanding of what strengths, weaknesses, opportunities or threats really looks like from an organizational frame of reference rather than an individual perspective.

Strategy Check: Is your SWOT up-to-date?

You may also be interested in:

• Identifying your strengths and weaknesses
• Strengths and Weaknesses
• SWOT

Topics in this post: business strategy execution, business strategy implementation, executing strategy, implementation of strategy, implementation strategies, implementing strategies, S.W.O.T., Strategic Implementation, strategic plan implementation, strategy execution, Strategy Implementation, SWOT, SWOT Analysis |