Common Scenarios

SWOT Diagram Considerations

You are a team leader in a large business.

A SWOT does not really apply to your team, however you can look at your teams strengths and weaknesses.

Where possible start by looking at your business units SWOT and select relevant items from it for your SWOT.

Then complete an analysis of your team’s strengths and weaknesses.  Ideally you will benchmark your team against your competitors, though you may only be able to compare with other teams in your work environment.

You can add some of your business unit’s opportunities and threats if you like to make your SWOT diagram complete.

Your department produces a saleable product or service that is a not a core product or service.

You can use your corporate analysis for your macro environment. However, because you operate in a different industry to your parent organization. you will need to review your industry environment.

It is possible that you will identify a different competitive environment to that of your parent organization.

Additional considerations
You will also need to consider some additional Opportunities and Threats.

On this site we maintain that opportunities and threats are external to your organization., however when completing a divisional or departmental SWOT you may need to consider an internal competitive force.

Internal competition

1. Will the business maintain their commitment to your business unit, will their support increase or decrease.

2. Will another business unit be more successful in attracting funds away from your business unit? 
   

You will also need to consider competitor size as a factor in your strengths and weaknesses.

Whilst you might be a part of a big business you need to determine if this is a strength or weakness for you. Big businesses are often less responsive and have higher overhead recovery costs than small business.

If your competitors are small, they maybe able to freely innovate, flex their labor pool and run at a lower cost than your business.

You could be slow to respond, as you are bound by your corporate processes, employment conditions and approval processes. And as you are non core your issues never seem to be a priority.

On the flip side you may have greater financial security than your smaller competitors.

Your team produces something that could be outsourced.

When completing your SWOT diagram you will need to consider who your competitors are, your competitors will be those who your work can be outsourced to.

Again your organization. maybe competing in a different industry environment to your department and thus subject to different competitive forces.

Your biggest threat is the threat of being outsourced, to avoid this threat you need to respond to the competitive forces in your industry rather than those in your parent companies industry.

A frequent mistake is to assume your parent company will not outsource you, this may hold true until there is a change in their competitive forces.

Some common examples of processes that are outsourced

1. Component manufacturing to supply assembly lines
2. Maintenance
3. Cleaning services
4. Postal services
5. Printing services
6. Telephony
7. Freight
8. Tooling manufacture and maintenance
9. Call center
10. Accounting
11. Clerical processes
12. Programming or software maintenance

Your team works on the core products or processes of the business

Just complete a SWOT for your products or services.