What it shows
A SWOT analysis crosses internal and external factors with favorable and unfavorable ones, giving strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Each quadrant has a one-line definition.
Three numbered items fill each quadrant for Northfield Coffee Roasters, a fictional specialty coffee roaster. The codes, S1 to T3, are the ones the TOWS matrix example uses to turn the same twelve items into strategies.
How to read it
The top row is internal. Northfield’s loyal subscribers, its skilled roasting team and its four cafes are strengths (S1 to S3); its single roasting plant, already near capacity, is a weakness (W1).
The bottom row is external. Growing demand for home espresso is an opportunity (O1), and new small roasters selling online are a threat (T2).
Ask of each item whether it comes from inside the company or from its environment. Rising green coffee prices (T1) come from outside, so they are a threat, not a weakness.
A SWOT lists; it does not choose. Deciding what to do with the twelve items is the job of the TOWS matrix.
The four quadrants
- Strengths: internal traits that give the organization an advantage over others.
- Weaknesses: internal traits that put the organization at a disadvantage.
- Opportunities: elements in the environment the organization could exploit.
- Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble.
Ways to use it in teaching
Have students write a SWOT for an organization they know, three items per quadrant, then swap and challenge each other’s internal and external calls.
Bring in the PESTLE and five forces pages for the same company and ask which of their findings become opportunities and threats here.
The four cafes are a strength here (S3), yet the VRIO path finds them only a source of competitive parity and the BCG matrix plots them as a dog. Ask students which reading is right, and why three tools disagree about the same asset.
SWOT has no single agreed author. Puyt, Lie and Wilderom (2023) trace it to the SOFT approach of Robert F. Stewart’s team, in which managers sorted planning issues into Satisfactory, Opportunities, Faults and Threats: a short reading on how management tools acquire their origin stories.
Sources
- Puyt, R. W., Lie, F. B., & Wilderom, C. P. M. (2023). The origins of SWOT analysis. Long Range Planning, 56(3), 102304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2023.102304
- SWOT analysis. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 19, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
