SWOT Analysis Template
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, four quadrants.
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As at October 14, 2026
Strengths — internal, helpful
| [add strengths] |
Weaknesses — internal, harmful
| [add weaknesses] |
Opportunities — external, helpful
| [add opportunities] |
Threats — external, harmful
| [add threats] |
Strengths and weaknesses are things you control. Opportunities and threats are not. If an item appears in the wrong half, the action you take from it will be wrong too.
What is an SWOT Analysis?
A SWOT analysis is four boxes: strengths and weaknesses, which are things about you, and opportunities and threats, which are things about the world around you. It matters because it forces a team to write down, on one page, what it is actually good at and what it is exposed to before deciding anything. The value is in the discipline of the four boxes, not in the boxes themselves.
Small business owners writing a business plan, marketing teams before a campaign, boards at an away day, students working through a coursework assignment, and consultants at the start of an engagement. Banks and grant funders often ask for one in an application pack, which is why many people first meet it as a required section rather than a chosen tool. It also works at smaller scales: one product, one market entry, one competitor, or a personal decision about which job to take.
Most of what belongs in opportunities and threats is jurisdictional: a tax change, a licensing requirement, a new data protection or employment rule, tariffs, a planning decision. Name the actual source rather than a general worry — the tax authority's published rate for the coming year, your sector regulator's open consultation, the law that sets minimum notice in your state or country — and note when you last checked it. Where the SWOT forms part of a funding application, a prospectus or a sale document, the statements in it can carry legal weight, so verify anything you assert about the market.
A SWOT decides nothing. It is an inventory, and an inventory with no weighting: a minor irritation and an existential risk sit in the same box at the same size. It does not test whether any entry is true either — the boxes will happily hold a strength that nobody outside the room agrees you have. And it is a snapshot rather than a monitor: a SWOT written eighteen months ago describes a market that has moved since. Pair it with a decision, a plan, or at minimum a date to redo it.
What to put in an SWOT Analysis
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Project | For example: Warehouse management system rollout |
| Strengths | One per line |
| Weaknesses | One per line |
| Opportunities | One per line |
| Threats | One per line |
How to write an SWOT Analysis
Fix the question before you start
A SWOT of an entire company is usually too broad to act on. Write the subject at the top: 'opening a second branch in Leeds', 'moving support to a subscription model', 'bidding for the council contract'. The same organisation produces different boxes for each. Without a fixed subject, people fill the grid with unrelated observations and the exercise ends as a list nobody uses.
Keep internal and external strictly separate
Strengths and weaknesses sit inside your control — your people, cash, brand, equipment, processes. Opportunities and threats sit outside it — competitors, regulation, interest rates, a supplier's decision. 'We have no marketing budget' is a weakness. 'Customers now expect next-day delivery' is a threat. Mixing the two produces a grid in which every problem looks like somebody else's fault.
Write specifics, then a piece of evidence
'Strong reputation' is a placeholder. 'Three repeat contracts with the same hospital trust, renewed without a tender' is a claim someone can check and challenge. Beside each entry, note what makes you believe it — a customer comment, a churn figure, a win rate, a supplier's letter. Entries with nothing behind them are the ones dropped the moment the plan meets a budget.
Cut each box to five entries
A first pass produces long lists, and the ranking is the actual work. Ask which entries would change your decision if they doubled in size, and keep those. Five per box is a reasonable ceiling, and the argument about what to cut is more useful than the original brainstorm. Move discarded items to a note underneath rather than deleting them.
Turn the grid into actions
Pair the boxes: which strength can you point at which opportunity, and which weakness leaves you exposed to which threat? Each pairing that matters becomes one action with an owner and a date. A SWOT that stops at the grid is an away-day exercise; one that ends in four owned actions is a plan. Note the date you produced it and when you will redo it.
Common mistakes
- Putting an external market trend in the strengths box, which hides the fact that you have no control over it and cannot rely on it lasting.
- Writing vague entries such as 'good team' that nobody can verify, so the grid records opinion and produces no argument worth having.
- Filling each box with twenty items, which flattens a serious threat and a minor annoyance into the same visual weight.
- Running the SWOT with only the leadership team, so the weaknesses that front-line staff and customers see never reach the page.
- Stopping at the completed grid, leaving a page that reads well in a plan and changes nothing about what the business does on Monday.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a weakness and a threat?
A weakness is something about you that you could in principle fix — thin cash reserves, a single key supplier, nobody who can cover the payroll run. A threat sits outside you: a competitor's price cut, a regulatory change, a rising rent. The test is control. If you could change it with a decision and a budget, it belongs in weaknesses.
How many points should each SWOT box have?
Three to five is a useful working limit. The point of the constraint is to force ranking: a box holding twenty entries tells the reader nothing about which one matters. Do the long brainstorm first, then cut, and keep the cut items in a note below the grid so the thinking behind them is not lost for next time.
Do I need a SWOT for a business plan?
Many lenders, grant bodies and incubators ask for one in their application pack, so check the template you have been given. Where it is not required it is still a fast way to structure the market section. What reviewers look for is honesty in the weaknesses box — a plan listing no weaknesses at all reads as either careless or evasive.
What is TOWS and how is it different from SWOT?
TOWS uses the same four categories but starts from the pairings rather than the lists: strength with opportunity, weakness with threat, and the two cross-pairs. Each pairing suggests a strategy. It is essentially the step most people skip after filling in a SWOT grid, which is why it exists under a separate name at all.
How often should a SWOT be updated?
Whenever the decision it supports comes round again — annually for a business plan, per campaign for marketing, and immediately if something in the external boxes actually happens. Put the date on the sheet. An undated SWOT tends to be reused for years, long after the competitor it names has left the market entirely.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.