Elsevier

Long Range Planning

Volume 30, Issue 1, February 1997, Pages 46-52
Long Range Planning

SWOT analysis: It's time for a product recall

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-6301(96)00095-7Get rights and content

The attempt to improve the corporate strategy development process has fostered a range of approaches which have enjoyed different levels of support and popularity over time. One of the most popular is the SWOT analysis. This article reports on an in-depth review of its use by consuitants who included this as part of their approach to understanding a business from a corporate perspective and as part of the Department of Trade and Industry's Manufacturing Planning and Implementation Scheme. Of the 50 companies reviewed within the scheme, over 20 companies used a SWOT involving 14 consulting companies. All the applications showed similar characteristics—long lists (over 40 factors on average), general (often meaningless) descriptions, a failure to prioritize and no attempt to verify any points. But the most worrying general characteristic was that no-one subsequently used the outputs within the later stages of the strategy process. The continued use of the SWOT analysis, therefore, needs to be questioned.

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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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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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.

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