A short brief on Strategic Planning by SWOT Analysis.

1. Brig Gen Dr Zulfiquer Ahmed Amin
M Phil, MPH, PGD (Health Economics), Advance Course HA (AIIMS, Delhi), MBBS
North South University (NSU)

2. Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its
direction, making decisions and allocating its resources to attain
goals. Strategic planning is useful for organizations during any of the
following circumstances:
-In the context of changing industry trends or economic market
-Before the launch of a new product or branch of the business
-Following a merger with another organization
-Following a change in senior leadership
-Before an expansion plan
-Before large capital investment

3. SWOT analysis is a planning methodology that helps an organization
to develop a full awareness of all the factors involved in making a
business decision.
It is prudent to perform a SWOT analysis before committing to any
sort of company action.

5. SWOT (Acronym of Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats)
analysis is a tool that identifies the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of a business. It measures what an
organization can and cannot do, as well as its potential opportunities
and threats.

10. Internal factors
Strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) refer to internal factors, which are
the resources and experience readily available and within control of
the organization.
Internal factors are:
-Financial Resources (Funding, sources of income and investment
opportunities)
-Physical resources (Location, facilities and equipment)
-Human resources (Employees, volunteers and target clients)
-Access to natural resources, trademarks, patents and copyrights
-Current processes (Employee development programs, technologies)

11. External factors
External factors are typically things company do not control like
opportunity and threats. Examples are:
-Market Trends (Demand for new products, technology
advancements)
-Economic trends (local, national and international financial trends)
-Funding (donations, legislature and other sources)
-Demographics (Composition of the population)
-Relationships with suppliers and partners.
-Political, and economic environments.

12. Strengths
A ‘strength’ is the internal factor of an organization that has a
positive implication. It adds value, or offers an organization
competitive advantage.
Strength
Adds Value
Competitive
Edge

14. Weaknesses
Weaknesses are those things that detract from the value of the
services or products and place an organization at a disadvantage,
when compared with the competitors.
Answer to following questions can identify weaknesses:
● What can be improved or altered?
● What do we do badly?
● How does our performance compare with our competitors?
● What have our customers told about our negative?
● What should we avoid?

16. Opportunities
Opportunities arise from external sources. Combining organization’s
strength with available opportunities, can give it added advantage.

17. Examples of opportunities include collaboration among healthcare
organizations through the development of healthcare delivery
networks, increased funding for healthcare informatics,
incorporation of ICT and advanced technologies to improve quality
and efficiency.

18. Threats are external factors to an organization that could negatively
affect organizational performance. The greater is the ability to
identify potential threats, the more proactive an organization can be
to plan and respond to such events.
Threats

20. By SWOT Analysis, managers can develop four types of strategies:
1. SO (Strengths-Opportunities) strategies.
2. WO (Weaknesses-Opportunities) strategies.
3. ST (Strengths-Threats) strategies.
4. WT (Weaknesses-Threats) strategies

21. SWOT Analysis Matrix
-SO strategies use a firm’s internal strengths to take advantage of
external opportunities.
-WO (Weakness- Opportunities) strategies aim at improving internal
weaknesses by taking advantage of external opportunities. An
alternative WO strategy would be to hire and train people with the
required technical capabilities.
-ST (Strength- Threats) strategies use a firm’s strengths to avoid or
reduce the impact of external threats.
-WT (Weakness- Threats) strategies are defensive tactics directed at
reducing internal weakness and avoiding external threats.

22. Matching and Converting
Through a SWOT analysis, a company needs to come up with some action
plans based on the findings.
These are done by two methods:
-Matching and
-Converting
‘Matching’ is a strategy to combine internal strengths with external
opportunities to reap benefits.
‘Converting’ is a strategy that changes weaknesses or threats of an
organization into strengths or opportunities, or, to minimize it.

24. Matching uses competitive advantage to pair strengths with
opportunities. Example:
In the 1980s UK clothing retailer ‘Marks and Spencer’ had a strong
presence in the high street and a customer base that bought on the
basis of quality rather than price. M&S were able to leverage these
strengths to exploit the opportunity to sell high-quality food and
beverages to its customers. Thirty years later M&S is still a major
player in the UK quality food and beverage market.

25. Converting means converting weaknesses or threats to strengths or
opportunities. For example,
Many island-based Scottish whisky distilleries were unable to expand
their production facilities because of environmental or logistical
issues. This weakness could be converted into a strength by stressing
the artisan nature of the product and making the limited production
synonymous with exclusivity. This means that they could maintain
high retail prices and reasonable profits.

26. Steps in SWOT Analysis
Step 1 of SWOT analysis involves the collection and evaluation of key
data. Depending on the organization, these data might include
population demographics, community health status, sources of
healthcare funding, and/or the current status of medical technology.
In Step 2 of SWOT analysis, data on the organization are sorted into
four categories: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths and weaknesses generally stem from factors within the
organization, whereas opportunities and threats usually arise from
external factors.

27. Step 3 involves the development of a SWOT matrix by arranging its
strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats into four groups of
strategies.
Step 4 involves developing action plans by matching or converting
the existing situations to favorable plans.