In SWOT Analysis template, there are four SWOT factors namely: STRENGTHS; WEAKNESSES; OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS. It is sometimes known as the Internal and External SWOT Factors. Among the four factors, the Internal SWOT factor consist of the Strengths and Weaknesses whereas the External SWOT factors consist of the Opportunities and Threats.

In the business world, there are many confusion over the proper classification of the SWOT factors to an extend they take weaknesses as opportunities. However, it is not difficult to make the difference. Let’s further define the Internal SWOT factors as follows:-

Internal SWOT Factors -  From the name itself, it refers to factors which are internal in nature. The internal means issues pertaining to within the organization and they are within the control parameters of internal staffs. It is internal because what ever the issues are, they were caused by internal inefficiency, consequence of wrong doing by own staffs or mere decision made locally. All these negative issues migrate into problem or cause of a problem. Hence, these “Weaknesses” are internal SWOT factors.

On the other hand, there are factors which was resulted in positive outcome which may due to good performance of a process or an operation, cooperation of workforce, improvement attained, strong financial standing etc. Since all weaknesses are the outcome of actions taken by the internal staffs, they are classified as Internal SWOT factors. Let’s take a look at the following examples of STRENGTHS:-

Let’s examine the Weaknesses and see how someone can wrongly classified them as Opportunities: Case study: customer complaints:-

According to the customer service executives who compiled customer complaint data, she would submit a report to her manager on a monthly basis. As usual, the manager would put the report aside for several days before he called upon her to discussed about the report.

She recalled in one of the occasion during their discussion, the manager look at the increased trend of one category of complaint that related to delayed delivery by transporters. Instead of taking the complain as a weakness, the manager claimed that it is an opportunity for him to discuss with the transport ways to improve their handling method.

The manager kept saying it was an opportunity to improve the transportation system. While I agreed with the manager it was indeed an opportunity improve the transportation system, but in the context of SWOT factors, an opportunity is refer to external factors in which an organization has no control over it. The fact that the manager can initiated an improvement plan within his own means hence he could control it. Therefore, it is not an External factor .

While it is important to deal with improvement, we do not want to end up many so called opportunities derived from Internal and forgot about the real External Opportunities which can yield better results financially.

Do you faced with similar claimed by someone like the manager in the case study in your organization?