Strategic Management: From Theory to Implementation, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 9

The corporate appraisal – assessing strengths and weaknesses

The assessment of strengths and weaknesses is an early stage in strategic thinking, and one where it is very easy to end up with meaningless lists of so-called strengths and weaknesses. The chapter will explore five ways of looking at strengths and weaknesses: assessment by managers, often resulting in what many books call SWOT analysis; equilibrium analysis, which is one way of forcing managers to make a more careful consideration of strengths and weaknesses; a process to ‘audit’ the facts, drawing conclusions from a detailed analysis of the organisation; the critical success factor approach; and the core competency approach. For each method, the chapter deals both with ...