SWOT analysis: It's time for a product recall
Section snippets
The MPI Scheme
Over the last decade the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has launched a series of initiatives designed to stimulate technological innovation in UK industry. One of the most recent of these initiatives is the MPI scheme. The specific aim of this scheme was to relate advanced manufacturing technology to market needs. A total of 140 small- and medium-sized enterprises have taken part in this scheme, which came to an end in December 1994.
The aim of the scheme was to support the development
Research Method
A unique feature of the MPI scheme was the inclusion of an analytical co-ordination (AC) role, undertaken by a group of operations management academics (including the present authors), whose task was to analyse the methods used by consultants working with client companies to meet the aims of the scheme. The AC team conducted in-depth reviews of 50 of these projects, for which they were permitted full access to all personnel involved and all relevant data and documentation. The reviews all
SWOT Analysis
It could be claimed that strategic planning in general, and the SWOT analysis in particular, have their mutual origins in the work of business policy academics at Harvard Business School and other American business schools from the 1960s onwards. The work of Kenneth Andrews2, 3 has been especially influential in popularizing the idea that good strategy means ensuring a fit between the external situation a firm faces (threats and opportunities) and its own internal qualities or characteristics
MPI SWOT Findings
This section presents the findings of the MPI scheme and is in four parts: the case database; the SWOT process; content of SWOTs; subsequent use of SWOT outputs.
Conclusion: Time for a Product Recall
Our principal conclusion has to be that, from the evidence given above, SWOT as deployed in these companies was ineffective as a means of analysis or as part of a corporate strategy review. Indeed, it is arguable that this SWOT activity and its outputs do not constitute analysis at all, for they do not go beyond description, and description only in the most general terms. In these circumstances it is not only unsurprising that the outputs were largely not used in subsequent stages of the
Dr Terry Hill is a Professor at London Business School, UK.
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Dr Terry Hill is a Professor at London Business School, UK.
Dr Roy Westbrook is Associate Professor of Operations Management at London Business School and Chairman of the Sloan Masters Programme.