How To Use Swot Analysis To Implement A Benchmarked Strategy
When you are in the process to perform a strategic Planning, you would come across quite often that your CEO would skip the analysis process. Be it using PEST or SWOT Analysis. Your CEO could tell you to adopt to certain strategy based on his benchmarked information.
What should you do when you faced with this sort of situation? Do you accept the benchmarked strategy? If so, what is the next thing you need to do?
First of all, I must highlight that using benchmarking to come out with a strategy is not uncommon. The challenged is for you to develop an execution plan to ensure the strategy is implemented and yield its desired result.
Next, how do you work out the execution plan? Below is an example how I did:-
Strategy: The strategy adopted was ” Outsource production to Original Equipment Manufacturer” ( O.E.M )
Objective: To widen the product range without having to set up new line for it
I use the S.W.O.T. to analyse the four factor to execute the strategy. Below are my analysis:-
Strengths:
- Good relationship with several medium size OEM’s
- Strong R & D engineers
Weaknesses:
- Not able to market high volume product
- Limitation with big size production
Opportunities:
- China manufacturer is over capacity
- High demand for big size product
Threats:
- OEM company may withdraw supplies
- Competitor copy design from OEM company
The above SWOT Analysis are factors that has close relationship in implementing the strategy: Outsource production to Original Equipment Manufacturer”. Hence, understanding various aspect of SWOT would help to implement the Strategies. Please take note that all my earlier articles talk about using SWOT analysis to formulate strategies. whereas, this article use it to identify factors that can influence the implementation of the strategies.
In summary, depending on your experience, you can use SWOT Analysis in more than one application. I suspect some of you may not be able to grasp the concept of this case study but given time and practices, you can do better.
Click here to join the TQM Ezine Community to subscribe to a 5-series Understanding of SWOT Analysis and download a FREE ebook titled: Articulated Baldrige Values and Concepts
About the Author: Dr. LM Foong, PhD
He writes and publishes TQM articles, ebooks, case studies, trainer manual and other TQM Related information made available at the Resource Center in Total Quality Management
Tags: article, implement strategy, strategic planning, strategy, swot, swot analysis, tqm