Weighing Which Analysis Works Best for Your Business
Evaluating your business is just as important as running one. Whether it be increasing or decreasing sales, employee turnover, customer engagement online, etc., the signs of a healthy business must always be monitored in order to keep up your space in the marketplace.
Better yet, you want to sustain that space— and thrive in it. That’s where the SWOT and SOAR analyses come in.
What is SWOT?
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The first two deal with the internal environment of a business while the latter two deal with the outside factors a business can face. The strengths and opportunities are known to be the positives a business can evaluate themselves on and the weaknesses and threats are those that harm a business in meeting their brand’s overall mission, vision and goals.
Strengths: What strengths of your business beat competitors?
Weaknesses: What parts of your business keep you from beating competitors or hinder profits?
Opportunities: What opportunities are out there to help grow your business?
Threats: What threats exist that can hurt your business?
Questions that can help build a SWOT analysis include:
- What do we consider our assets?
- How do we stand out as a business?
- What keeps our business sustainable?
- What has kept our customers loyal?
- How do competing companies do better than us?
- Do we have a high turnover rate of employees?
- What industry trends are happening that the business can take advantage of?
- Are we up to date on our competitors?
- Do we have crisis communications plans prepared?
What is SOAR?
SOAR, on the other hand, is all about focusing on strengths and opportunities— and other positive, affirming values of a business. SOAR is about the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results of a business and its goals. With SOAR, a business takes a laser focused on analyzing what strengths can build their aspirations and what results can be achieved through certain opportunities.
Strengths: What have been your business’s greatest achievements?
Opportunities: What markets or target audiences can your business capitalize on?
Aspirations: What are your mission, vision and goals for the business?
Results: What is the best way to measure the results of your meeting the business’s mission, vision and goals?
Questions that can help build a SOAR analysis include:
- What strengths does our business have and how can we expand upon them?
- How can we use our strengths to achieve better results?
- What makes the business unique?
- What partnerships can we look into to help elevate our business in the community or market?
- What do we want the business to be known for?
- What is the industry we are in passionate about and how can we help contribute?
- What are some ways we can track results?
Major Differences Between SWOT and SOAR
The major differences between SWOT and SOAR is that SWOT is about assessing and analyzing a business’s competitive edge in the market, while SOAR is all about enhancing the mission and future vision of a business as a whole.
Essential to note, most businesses have been using SWOT for decades now. It’s a household term for evaluating how a business is improving their performance, taking the time to monitor its present situation.
SOAR has recently been introduced and is gaining popularity especially with smaller businesses who are still developing their brand given that SOAR focuses primarily on the future. When you are a fairly small or young company, it’s more common that you want to build towards the long-term before you are able to have all the information you need to assess a present quarter’s results. At AE Tucker Consulting, we highly encourage business owns to have that growth-mindset and to focus on those big hairy, audacious goals that is deliberately achieved through SOAR.
Another important difference to note is that SWOT is about assessing a business through the scope of its competition; the questions zero in on keeping the business in the best place possible at all times. SOAR, on the other hand, is less about competition and more about collaboration. Its questions allow a business and its teams think about how to work together and propel the business forward.
In this way, where SWOT is based on tactics, strategies and data, SOAR is all about being vision-oriented and focusing on a business’s teams’ unity to pave the path forward.
When to SWOT and When to SOAR
Each business should use SWOT and SOAR at different points in time. If you are a well-established business, it’s smart to perform routine SWOT analyses that help show what’s working and what isn’t. It’s especially important to perform a SWOT if new competitors have entered the business, you see your profits and sales have stagnated or are going down, or if you are seeing that employee culture is changing.
If you are a fairly new business, recently merged or were acquired by another business, are going to rebrand or want to boost employee morale, a SOAR analysis is your tool. You will be able to have teams work together to feel they have a stake in the future of the company and can clearly see where it’s going. Most importantly, SOAR emphasizes and manifests the future that the company wants— and therefore works on the building blocks so it gets there.
Ensuring the Analyses are Done Right
To ensure that each analysis within your business is done smoothly and effectively, it’s best to work with a trusted advisor or consultant— and that’s where AE Tucker Consulting comes in.
Whether you’d prefer a guide, consultant, advisor or part-time CFO, AE Tucker Consulting can work with owners and management of small to midsize privately held companies to help you develop and implement SWOT and SOAR analyses that get the job done.
Optimize your company value, your profits and your company culture— with our help, you’ll be SWOTting and SOARing through each quarter the way your business deserves!