--- name: deanpeters/swot-analysis source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/deanpeters-swot-analysis@1/SKILL.md source_sha256: 383c1cd12acf --- # SWOT Analysis (Evidence-Cited) ## Purpose Build an evidence-cited SWOT of one company — yours or a competitor's — from the public record: **use or gather evidence → four labeled quadrants → crossings → next-step options.** Strengths and weaknesses come from documented capability and customer voice; opportunities and threats from market, competitor, and macro signals. Every entry carries a source and a label, and the analysis ends with the S-O and W-T crossings — because a SWOT without "so what" is a parking lot with four sections. ## Input **Works best with:** the company to analyze, the scope (whole company or one product line/market), and **the decision this SWOT should support**. **Also useful:** the perspective — theirs, or yours competing with them — and any research already in session (a [`competitive-research-snapshot`](../competitive-research-snapshot/SKILL.md), VoC themes, a landscape scan, [`company-intel`](../company-intel/SKILL.md) output): the SWOT then *synthesizes* instead of re-searching. Input supplied inline with the invocation — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as answers already given. Use it against the question budget; don't re-ask. **Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The skill opens with at most 3 questions (company + scope, decision, perspective) and proceeds on labeled assumptions if they go unanswered. **Example invocation:** `Evidence-cited SWOT on [Competitor A]'s mid-market product line, from our perspective — supports the Q3 positioning refresh. Last month's snapshot is attached.` ## Key Concepts - **Governing protocol:** honors the [`autonomous-investigation`](../autonomous-investigation/SKILL.md) contract — question budget of 3, search-plan gate, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, Just Enough Mode (max 5 ranked entries per quadrant), stable schema, 4-option Final Step. Disciplines: OSINT + FININT + HUMINT per [`intelligence-collection-disciplines`](../intelligence-collection-disciplines/SKILL.md). - **Quadrant discipline.** S and W are *internal and current*; O and T are *external*. The most common SWOT error is an "opportunity" that requires the company to act — that's a strategy, not an opportunity. Flag it when you catch it; catching it is half the teaching. - **Claimed vs. evidenced advantage.** Strengths sourced from the company's own marketing are claims; strengths corroborated by customer voice, filings, or independent coverage are evidence. Customer voice weighs heaviest on weaknesses — buyers document weaknesses vendors won't. - **The crossings are the deliverable.** S-O names the attack (which strength unlocks which opportunity); W-T names the exposure (which weakness a threat finds first). SWOT is an input to moves, not a wall poster. - **Companion, not substitute:** [`porters-five-forces`](../porters-five-forces/SKILL.md) reads the *industry's* structure; this reads *one company's* position within it. Run both when the decision is market entry. - **When NOT to use:** internal-only SWOT from private knowledge → run it as a team workshop with your evidence; the whole competitor set → snapshot first, SWOT the one or two that matter. - **Do-not-invent list:** financials, customer wins, market share, product claims, roadmap items. ## Application 1. **Check session for existing evidence** (snapshot, VoC themes, landscape scan, company-intel). Present → synthesize from it; search only gaps and staleness. 2. **Credit inline context**, then ask only the unanswered questions (max 3): 1. Which company, and whole-company or one product line? 2. What decision should this support? 3. From whose perspective — theirs, or yours competing with them? 3. **If researching fresh, show the 3-bullet search plan** — source sweep (filings, reviews, press, pricing pages, hiring signals), how internal vs. external evidence will be separated, how facts split from inference. Continue unless revised. 4. **Emit the schema below exactly.** ### Output schema (do not reorder) ~~~markdown # SWOT: [Company / Scope] **As-of date:** | **Decision supported:** | **Perspective:** ## 1. Strengths (internal, evidenced) - [Entry] — [evidence: URL, date] — [Fact/Inference] - [Max 5, ranked by defensibility] ## 2. Weaknesses (internal, evidenced) - [Entry — customer voice weighs heaviest here] — [URL] — [label] - [Max 5, ranked by exploitability] ## 3. Opportunities (external) - [Entry — market/macro signal] — [URL] — [label] - [Max 5, ranked by fit to their strengths] ## 4. Threats (external) - [Entry — competitor/regulatory/technology signal] — [URL] — [label] - [Max 5, ranked by likelihood x damage] ## 5. The Crossings (the "so what") - **S-O (attack):** [strength that unlocks which opportunity — 1-2 moves, labeled Inference] - **W-T (exposure):** [weakness a threat will find first — 1-2 risks, labeled Inference] - **For your decision:** [what this SWOT says about the decision named above, in 2 sentences] ### Assumptions to Validate - [Assumption 1] / [Assumption 2] / [Assumption 3] ~~~ A copy/paste fill-in version of this schema, with quality checks, lives in [`template.md`](template.md). ### Final Step (offer exactly 4 options) 1. Run the W-T exposure into a battle card or risk plan ([`battle-card-builder`](../battle-card-builder/SKILL.md)) 2. SWOT a second company for side-by-side comparison 3. Feed the crossings into a positioning statement ([`positioning-statement`](../positioning-statement/SKILL.md)) 4. Schedule-ready version: which entries should a quarterly re-run watch? Accept `1`, `2`, `3`, `4`, `1 and 2`, `Verbose Mode`, or a custom path. ## Examples **The quadrant discipline catching a disguised strategy (fictional):** > Draft opportunity: "expand into the compliance-automation segment." Caught and reclassified — that > requires *them* to act, so it's a candidate strategy, not an opportunity. The underlying > opportunity, restated externally: "compliance-automation demand in their install base is growing — > **Fact** ([industry survey, URL]) — and no incumbent serves it." Now the S-O crossing can test > whether any *documented strength* (their services arm, their audit-trail architecture) actually > unlocks it — or whether it's a mirage that flatters the roadmap. **Claimed vs. evidenced, side by side:** > - Their site claims "enterprise-grade reliability" — that's a claim, not a strength. > - Strength as evidenced: "publishes a status page with 26 months of >99.95% uptime — **Fact** > ([status page, URL]) — and reliability praise recurs across independent reviews — **Fact** > ([review site, URL])." Ranked #2 by defensibility: verifiable, sustained, hard to copy quickly. See [`examples/sample.md`](examples/sample.md) for a complete worked SWOT (fictional FSM-software market, same scenario as the suite's chain examples) that synthesizes from a snapshot and watch report already in session. [`examples/sample-industrial.md`](examples/sample-industrial.md) runs the same quadrant discipline on an industrial evidence diet, including a fortress-move warning in the S-O crossing. ## Common Pitfalls - **The four-box brainstorm.** Unsourced entries from a conference room are opinions arranged in quadrants. Evidence per entry is what separates this SWOT from the one nobody trusts. - **Opportunities that are strategies.** "Launch in Europe" is a move; "European demand outpacing local supply" is an opportunity. If the entry needs the company to act, reclassify it. - **Marketing-sourced strengths.** A strengths quadrant built from the company's own website is their positioning statement wearing your logo. Corroborate or label as claim. - **Skipping the crossings.** Four tidy quadrants and no moves. The S-O attack and W-T exposure are why the analysis exists — the decision-support sentence at the end is the test it must pass. - **Wish-list contamination.** Internal hopes ("we'd love better onboarding") placed in W, or fears in T, without evidence. Every quadrant works the public record; wishes go to the roadmap. ## References - [`autonomous-investigation`](../autonomous-investigation/SKILL.md) (Workflow) — the governing protocol - [`intelligence-collection-disciplines`](../intelligence-collection-disciplines/SKILL.md) (Component) — the evidence channels behind each quadrant - [`porters-five-forces`](../porters-five-forces/SKILL.md) (Workflow) — industry structure; run both for market-entry decisions - [`competitive-research-snapshot`](../competitive-research-snapshot/SKILL.md) (Workflow) — upstream evidence base - [`voice-of-customer-miner`](../voice-of-customer-miner/SKILL.md) (Workflow) — the weaknesses quadrant's best source - [`positioning-statement`](../positioning-statement/SKILL.md) (Component) — consumes the crossings - SWOT framework as standard strategy practice; adapted from `market-intelligence/swot-analysis-prompt.md` in the `https://github.com/deanpeters/product-manager-prompts` repo.