A standard SWOT analysis matrix.

To run your business well, you must know your business — and a SWOT analysis is an effective tool for achieving that knowledge. Covering your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, a SWOT analysis helps you see what your business can and cannot do.

Strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors affecting your business positively and negatively, while opportunities and threats are external factors. Filling in each quadrant of a standard SWOT analysis form involves asking yourself and other stakeholders in the business a series of questions.

Where strengths and opportunities align, you can set goals to grow; where weaknesses and threats align, you can take steps to shore up and protect your business. Essentially, a SWOT analysis makes it easier to plan wisely for your business’s future.

To learn more about how to do a SWOT analysis, check out this post on the bank’s blog.