Change is an inevitable part of community organizing. If you know how to take stock of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you are more likely to plan and act effectively.

Conducting a SWOT analysis is a powerful way to evaluate your company or project, whether you’re two people or 500 people. SWOT analyses can be applied to an entire company or organization, or individual projects within a single department. Most commonly, SWOT analyses are used at the organizational level to determine how closely a business is aligned with its growth trajectories and success benchmarks, but they can also be used to ascertain how well a particular project – such as an online advertising campaign – is performing according to initial projections.

SWOT Analysis – Internal and External Factors

A SWOT analysis is divided into two main categories: internal factors and external factors

Internal:

Internal factors are the strengths and weaknesses of the company. Strengths are the characteristics that give the business its competitive advantage, while weaknesses are characteristics that a company needs to overcome in order to improve its performance.

Examples of internal factors include:

• Company culture
• Company image
• Operational efficiency
• Operational capacity
• Brand awareness
• Market share
• Financial resources
• Key staff
• Organizational structure

External:

External factors are the opportunities and threats to the company. Opportunities are elements that the company sees in the external environment that it could pursue in the future to generate value. Threats are elements in the external environment that could prevent the company from achieving its goal or its mission or creating value.

Changes in the external environment may be due to:

• Societal changes
• Customers
• Competitors
• Economic environment
• Government regulations
• Suppliers
• Partners
• Market trends