SWOT Analysis: Definition, Template and Examples From Top Brands

Key takeaways

• A SWOT analysis sorts what you know about a business into four boxes: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors you control. Opportunities and threats are external factors you have to respond to.
• A good SWOT is specific: every point names a fact, a number or a source, not a vague adjective.
• The grid is only the first step. Its value comes from turning the four lists into decisions and priorities.
• Every brand example on this page is built from the company's own annual report and latest results.

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that lists a company's internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats it faces, in a 2x2 grid. Managers use it to see where they stand before choosing a strategy. For example, a brand with strong pricing power (a strength) can use it to enter a growing market (an opportunity).

The framework is older than most people think. Research by Puyt, Lie and Wilderom (2023) traces it to Robert F. Stewart's "SOFT" approach, published in 1965, which was relabeled Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in 1967.

SWOT analysis template: the four components

The template below is free to use. Copy the four questions in each box into your own document, slide or whiteboard, then fill in each box with evidence.

How to do a SWOT analysis, step by step

You can create a SWOT analysis alone in an hour, but it works best as a short session with people who see the business from different perspectives.

1. Define the objective

Write down the decision the SWOT should support, such as entering a new market or launching a product. A SWOT without a clear objective turns into a list of generic ideas.

2. Gather evidence and invite the right participants

Pull recent numbers first: sales, margins, customer reviews, market share and competitor moves. Then invite participants from sales, product, finance and customer service, so the brainstorming covers more than one point of view.

3. Identify the internal factors

List strengths and weaknesses that the company controls, such as its brand, costs, team, technology or distribution. Keep only points you can back with a fact.

4. Identify the external factors

List opportunities and threats in the market, such as customer trends, new regulation, tariffs, technology shifts and competitors. A useful test: if the factor would exist even if your company disappeared, it is external.

5. Prioritize and turn the grid into actions

Rank the points in each box by impact, then match them. The TOWS matrix (Weihrich, 1982) pairs strengths with opportunities, weaknesses with threats and so on, to produce concrete strategies.

Common mistakes in a SWOT analysis

• Mixing up internal and external factors, such as listing "a new competitor" as a weakness.
• Writing vague points like "good brand" with no number or source behind them.
• Listing too many points: five strong items per box beat twenty weak ones.
• Treating the SWOT as the final output instead of the starting point for a plan.
• Running it once and never updating it when the market changes.

Benefits and limits of the SWOT framework

The main benefit of SWOT is speed: it gives a team a shared picture of the business with no special data or software. Its limit is that it does not rank or weigh anything on its own, so it works best next to tools like a PESTLE analysis for the external picture or a competitive analysis for rivals.

SWOT analysis examples from top brands

Each example below applies the same framework to a real company, with figures taken from its annual report and quarterly results. Start with the Nike SWOT analysis, which shows a $46.4 billion brand with growing wholesale sales but falling revenue in Greater China.