Swot and Tows
Swot and Tows
Swot and Tows
TOWS Positions
SWOT Analysis (also known as SWOT Matrix) is a business framework that helps assessing
a wide variety of factors that may have a profound impact on a business’s performance. These
factors may either be internal to a company or external. Furthermore, these factors may either
be favourable/helpful or unfavourable/harmful to a company. By combining these two
dimensions one can draw a 2×2-matrix consisting of four
quadrants: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
A company’s strengths are its characteristics that give it an advantage over others
(competitors). Sometimes these strengths are also referred to as unique selling points
(USPs), firm-specific advantages (FSAs) or competitive advantage. The source of these
strengths are resources and capabilities that are valuable, rare, hard-to-imitate and organization-
wide supported. The VRIO framework is a useful tool to evaluate a company’s resources.
Examples of valuable company resources are patents, a strong brand reputation, a new
innovative product, a talented workforce, historically developed know-how and large financial
reserves. Another way of assessing where a company’s strengths are coming from is by doing
a Value Chain Analysis. By mapping out a company’s complete value chain, from the
purchasing of raw materials to the marketing and sales of the end-products, management is
better able to see where true value is created.
Figure 2: External Factors of SWOT Analysis (PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces)
TOWS Matrix
A SWOT analysis helps assessing a company’s current internal and external situation, but does
not provide concrete strategic actions to take. One way to map out the strategic options a
company has, is by using the so called TOWS matrix (or TOWS analysis). By combining
the external environment’s opportunities and threats with the internal organization’s strengths
and weaknesses, management can come up with four basic strategies to follow based on the
situation it is in:
Figure 4: SWOT Analysis converted into TOWS (SO, ST, WO and WT Strategies)