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Strategic Management and Swot Analysis

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Amongst all the novelties, trends, and fashions appearing in the field of strategic management during the last decades, the SWOT analysis, standing for: strengths, weaknesses opportunities, and threats has enjoyed a long lasting popularity among both practitioners and researchers. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that SWOT analysis can be used for both businesses and individuals. In the 60s swot analysis was invented at the Harvard business School for the purpose of analysing case studies,it was the efforts of two business policy professors ; professor George Albert Smith and professor C Roland Christensen. At Harvard in 1963 where a business policy conference was held about the SWOT analysis in which it has been …show more content…

When addressing the second issue Weihrich suggested the use of the interaction matrix but unfortunately his last suggestions was not made into practice. After that Even Hill and Westbrook(1997) came along and pointed some other difficulties when using the swot matrix such as the length of the factors listed ,the lack of prioritisation and the weight of the factors is not identified, in addition to that there is a lack of support of the statements and opinions with data or previous analysis. In the same year Beeho and Prentice (1997) described the swot analysis as familiar and a user-friendly method, because there is no need for a computer systems, special software or complex information to conduct a swot analysis. But it has got several shortcomings such as the factors listed in one category can fit into others, and there is clear lack of specificity and accuracy when describing the factors, in addition to that some factors represents opinions not facts. These two authors also said:” Owing to its simplistic nature and ease of use, the technique has been used in a slack manner and is susceptible to subjectivity and bias from managers who can present an unrealistic appraisal of company attributes.”(Behoo and Prentice 1997) Finally Hussey (2002) identified other weaknesses about the swot matrix from the perspective of managers where he says that it is difficult for managers to

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