Thursday, October 24, 2013

SWOT: Overview

This blog will provide a comprehensive overview of the SWOT analysis in connection to human resource management. Each blog entry will focus on one of the four aspects making the SWOT analysis (St. George Godfrey, 2013):

·      Strengths
·      Weaknesses
·      Opportunities
·      Threats

Also, each entry will be dedicated to how each aspect can be incorporated into HR management within different companies. The SWOT analysis is used, as a tool, by a company in order to plan for the future and see which areas of the company needs attention. A company can use SWOT analysis to evaluate a company overall or a particular department, such as human resource. Strengths of HR can be used to balance and enhance the department to become as efficient and profitable as possible (Nestor-Harper, 2013). The weaknesses allow the HR department to address struggling areas by using appropriate steps to eliminate them. The opportunities discovered through a SWOT analysis gives HR a platform to establish goals for the future and can create a plan to achieve these opportunities. Lastly, the threats found in a SWOT analysis can help the HR department to establish a plan to act against them to minimize any risks caused by threats. The SWOT analysis is a very beneficial tool to human resources. Benefits of applying a SWOT analysis include (Queensland Government, 2013):

·      Little or no cost
·      Improve business without external consultant or business adviser
·      Develop business goals and strategies
·      Concentrate on the most important factors affecting the business



Resources:
Nair, K. G. K., & Prasad, P. N. (2004). Offshore outsourcing: A swot analysis of a state
in India. Information Systems Management, 21(3), 34-40.
Nestor-Harper, Mary. (2013). SWOT analysis for HR practices. Smallbusiness.com.
2013 September 27.
Visser, Coert. (2005). Managing strengths in three steps. Managementsite.com 2013 September 27.
Queensland Government. (2013). Benefits and limitations of SWOT analysis.
www.business.qld.gov.au. 22 October 2013.
St. George Godfrey, Elli. (2013). Just what is a SWOT analysis anyway?
Abilitysuccessgrowth.com. 22 October 2013.
Walker, J. W., & Reif, W. E. (1999). Human resource leaders: Capability strengths and gaps. Human Resource Planning, 22(4), 21-32.

4 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading your Blog on SWOT Analysis. I really enjoyed how you went step by step into breaking down each part of the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat. SWOT Analysis is used as a tool for companies to see how they are performing in the market. They can also tell based on this method where they strength and weakness lies within the company. Also figuring out their opportunities for the future in whatever market they are and also looking at any threats of new competition. If there are threats of new competition how can the be a better competitor. SWOT Analysis is a very beneficial tool to use so that the company can get an overall perspective of how the company is operating and performing.

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  2. This is a great blog post. I enjoyed reading your comprehensive overview of the SWOT analysis in connection to human resource management. The SWOR analysis is something so simple that it is often overlooked. However, it is very vital to the success of the company. Recognizing your strengths and opportunities will help you take advantage of them and use them to outweigh the bad factors. Recognizing your weaknesses and threats will help a company come up with a plan to fix the weaknesses and try to eliminate the threats. The great thing about SWOT analysis is that they can be used for the company as a whole, or even targeting specific departments in the company.

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  3. You really discuss the SWOT Analysis
    in deep details. I enjoyed it reading and learning SWOT Analysis.

    ReplyDelete