Thursday, February 18, 2010

SWOT – A great tool for Strategic Planning

Changing dynamics of personal and professional environment keep us on our toes all the time. In this situation, our futuristic vision may remain intact; but strategies for continued growth require a constant watch and alignment.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats are four variables used for developing a Risk : Opportunity matrix. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors and opportunities and threats are external factors. A genuine analysis of these factors helps in developing a realistic strategic plan.

One major lesson that I have drawn from various readings and experience is that
if we learn to convert our weaknesses in to strengths and threats in to opportunities, our careers and businesses can see an exponential growth.

I had an excellent interaction with Mr Tariq Ikram yesterday at a workshop I attended in which a session on “The Role of the Board in Setting Strategy” was facilitated with Mr Ikram. I have known him for many years when he was the chief of Reckitt Benckiser. Most recently he served as Minister of State and Chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau of Pakistan. He is currently the President of Textile Institute of Pakistan (www.tip.edu.pk) (detailed CV is available at: http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/documents/documents/Introduction%20to%20Mr%20Tariq%20Ikram%20May(24)2006%20(2).pdf)I was so astonished to learn that Mr Ikram also loves SWOT and has been using this tool for developing strategic objectives.

I conducted a workshop sometime ago to cover SWOT; a video clip (in Urdu language) is available on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gajngiwou5k. And was also picked-up by http://sciencestage.com/v/14513/swot-analysis.html
Looking forward to your views at: hammadlinks@gmail.com

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