SWOT - Digital Channel Assessments & Actions

All of us as leaders and professionals know what SWOT is - strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.

This article is not about how do we do SWOT analysis as there are plenty of literatures available for one to learn SWOT and implement it. I would like to share my experience on using SWOT and thinking about what next ...

As we all know, SWOT is a a 2x2 matrix highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business or entity which we want to assess.

A simple SWOT analysis of a digital channel would something like as shown below:

This may further be improved to show internal and external factors. However, what I found time and again, that SWOT analysis is a retrospective tool. It does not suggest the future actions on how to use opportunities to improve the business or make them strengths and eliminate weaknesses or how do we convert these threats to opportunities - a missing link that I find in traditional SWOT analysis - what is next?

If we extend this analysis have specific actions e.g.

This analysis not only provides the retrospective view of traditional SWOT but also provides what do they mean for the business in future.

I am keen to get your thoughts on tracking insights from SWOT analysis into future initiatives or actions.