10 Reasons To Do A Year-End SWOT Analysis

The holiday season is a time for giving thanks, recognizing past accomplishments, and celebrating future possibilities.  As you think about the year that has passed and anticipate the next one, take a few minutes to consider how you can use your strengths and opportunities to overcome weaknesses and threats.  A SWOT analysis template can help you do this. If this process is new to you, here are 10 reasons to do a year-end SWOT analysis:

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1. It Helps You Clarify Your Priorities

When you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can focus on activities that will help you achieve your goals. The opportunities and threats in your environment can also help you prioritize what is important.

2. It Provides a Roadmap for the Next Year

Once you have identified your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, you can use a free SWOT analysis template to create a roadmap template. This will help you plan actions for the first two and manage or mitigate the last two.

3. It Shows You How Far You Have Come

A SWOT analysis can help you track your progress over the year. You can compare in a SWOT analysis template example how you assessed yourself at the beginning of the year with where you actually are and identify strengths and opportunities that emerged (and weaknesses and threats that were not as formidable as you had thought).

4. It Helps You Identify New Opportunities for Growth

As you look across your organization, industry or profession, what do you see that others don’t? Where are there new opportunities for growth? Where can you apply your strengths and skills to achieve even more than was possible last year?

5. It Shows You How You Can Contribute to Others’ Successes

With SWOT analysis template examples, you can identify the most important work within your organization, department or team and see how you can contribute to the success of others. As you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can look for ways to complement the work of others.

6. It Encourages Innovation

Threats can create a sense of urgency and encourage innovation as people look for ways to overcome them. When you have a clear understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, you can more readily see the opportunities that arise from threats.

7. It Improves Decision-Making

A year-end SWOT analysis gives you a framework for decision-making on the job by helping you to identify which decisions are most important to make now, which may be less important later, and how they relate to your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

8. It Helps You Manage Risk

Threats can pose a risk to your organization, department or team. Knowing what these risks are and how they relate to your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats can help you manage them more effectively.

9. It Encourages Creative Problem-Solving

When you are able to examine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to others’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, you have the ability to solve problems more creatively. This is especially true when looking at organizations in different industries or professions because it can allow for a different perspective on common issues.

10. It Provides Insight Into the External Environment Around You

Insight into your organization’s external environment can help you to better understand how it interacts with that environment and what you might do to influence those interactions.

11. It Helps You Identify Your Strengths and Opportunities

When opportunities arise, knowing what your strengths are will help you take advantage of them. Likewise, knowing your weaknesses can help you to avoid or minimize threats.

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12. It Helps You to See Your Opportunities and Threats in a New Light

A company SWOT analysis template can offer a unique perspective on opportunities and threats by exposing things you might not have otherwise seen. This gives you the ability to make course corrections when necessary.

If you need a SWOT analysis template for wide variety of purposes, go to Venngage.

13. It Helps You to Better Understand Your Competition

A SWOT analysis can also help you understand how your competition operates in relation to your organization and in the industry at large. This understanding allows you to determine what you might need to do differently or where joint collaboration might be beneficial.

14. It Can Lead You To Make New Connections

By studying your environment and understanding the opportunities and threats present, you might identify new relationships or partnerships that can help you achieve your goals.

15. It Can Help You Identify Weaknesses to Address

When weaknesses are identified, corrective actions can be taken to shore up those areas and improve your organization’s performance.

16. It Helps You To Monitor Your Progress

A business SWOT analysis template can be revisited on a periodic basis to track how your organization is performing over time. This information can help you make necessary changes and adjustments.

17. It’s An Effective Tool for Brainstorming

The process of doing a SWOT analysis can be helpful in generating new ideas and solutions. It can also help you to identify potential areas for improvement.

To Conclude

Doing a year-end SWOT analysis is a valuable way to assess your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It can help you to better understand your environment and take action to improve your position in the coming year.