SWOT Analysis Template

[pamlefkowitz]

SWOT Template For MSPs or IT Administrators

Team:

Assessed by:

What Is a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT analysis will help to identify and analyze the Strengths, Weaknesses of a business/department and the Opportunities and Threats in the external environment that could impact the business/department. The factors identified in the analysis are those on which to capitalize, invest, improve, or minimize. Ideally, a SWOT analysis should be done at the beginning of a project or startup of the business/team and then reviewed every 3-6 months.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths and weaknesses affect performance and outputs. 

• Strengths are positive internal factors that you can control. What does the business group do well? You want to capitalize on strengths.
• Weaknesses are negative internal factors that you can control. What are the business group’s struggles? You want to limit or improve on weaknesses. 

Opportunities and Threats

• Opportunities are positive external factors that you should invest in. What are your external opportunities to increase profit or grow? For example, are there new tools or new products/services that will bring in additional revenue or reduce costs?
• Threats are negative external factors that you want to mitigate or eliminate. Which external factors will seriously threaten the department? For example, is customer non-compliance a problem for the business or is faulty hardware impacting the bottom line? 

Why Do a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT analysis will provide the basis for creating or updating your strategic plan. It will identify key business  issues and factors. The information provided will assist you in creating goals and strategies that takes advantage of the business’s strengths while improving or limiting its weaknesses. It will help the owner or admin to invest in external opportunities, and it will help to minimize the impact of external threats to future growth. 

How to Do a SWOT Analysis

1. Set aside focused time to complete this worksheet. For a SWOT analysis to be beneficial, it must be thorough. 
2. Use the tables below to identify the department’s strengths and weaknesses (Table 1), and opportunities and threats (Table 2). A list of factors is provided for each category to help start your thinking. Note that these lists are not exhaustive.
3. Review the factors you’ve identified and highlight the most important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the department will face in the coming months. Doing this will provide a reasonable list of factors to guide goal setting.

Tips

• Use precise, verifiable statements.
• Avoid long lists of factors by focusing on only the most significant.
• You might find that a factor fits in more than one category. Place factors in one category only by determining which category fits best.
• Options generated will be used later for strategy and goal formation.
• After brainstorming strengths and weaknesses, identify (i.e. highlight, underline, bold, etc.) which ones you think are the department’s greatest strengths and weaknesses. Remember that these will be used to set goals for the department.

Environmental Factors ---------------- Specific Factors	Opportunities (list)	Threats (list)
Strengths
Weaknesses

Next Steps

1. Share the SWOT Analysis with key stakeholders (peers, team members, etc.) to solicit feedback.  
2. Schedule a meeting to present your findings and your initial analysis. Request live feedback on each of the 4 factors, asking for any additional statements or characteristics. The result of this meeting should be consensus on the most important strengths and weaknesses and the most important opportunities and threats the business could realistically face in the next few months. Record these agreed upon major SWOTs in the chart.
3. The next step is to turn these items into goal statements, complete with CTAs. Enter these goals in the Goal sections of the chart below. These will be included in your strategic plan.

   Environmental Factors ---------------------- Specific Factors	Opportunities (list)	Threats (list)
   Strengths	Goal CTA to make use of Opportunities through our Strengths:	Goal CTA to prevent Threats using our Strengths
   Weaknesses	Goal CTA to make use of Opportunities to minimize Weaknesses.	Goal CTA to minimize potential harm from threats that capitalize on our Weaknesses.