Seasonal SWOT Analysis: Reevaluating Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

Many business leaders perform annual SWOT analysis and consider it the cornerstone of their strategic planning for the ensuing year. By comprehensively evaluating their organizations’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, they are able to make all kinds of informed decisions on how to approach key business drivers, address risks and concerns, and drive sustainable growth. But if your business experiences even a moderate level of seasonality, this annual approach to SWOT probably falls short of the strategic tool it could be.

Many businesses experience seasonal ups and downs. From construction and retail to pest control and even manufacturing, a lot of companies strategize differently for different times of year - or at least, they should. While an annual SWOT analysis can take seasonality into account, it might benefit many seasonal businesses to perform SWOT semi-annually or even quarterly.

SWOT can be challenging and time-consuming work. But performing this strategic groundwork more regularly provides seasonal businesses a marked long-term advantage over their competition, a stronger understanding and control over resources, and the ability to be much more agile during both busy and slow seasons.

Click here to read “How to Achieve Business Success by Knowing Your Strengths and Weaknesses.”

How to Perform a Seasonal SWOT Analysis

When performed comprehensively, a seasonal SWOT analysis can provide exceptional insight into how to leverage the recurring peaks and valleys of your business.

1. First Collect Your Data

Understanding seasonality means more than just having a gut instinct or even noting the differences in revenue. It is essential to gather all sorts of data including production, customer engagement, sales, and costs related to the specific seasons – and the fluctuations across those seasons. This data will help you identify past patterns and forecast future trends.

2. Then It’s Time for Internal Analysis

Now that you have collected your data, it is time to dig a little deeper to identify the internal factors that are contributing to these seasonal dynamics from a SWOT perspective. On the strength side, a manufacturer may have streamlined production processes and fortified its manpower during times of high demand. Or a construction company is almost certainly more efficient during the summer months for any number of reasons. It is your job to determine what those reasons are, then ultimately leverage them.

3. Next Perform External Analysis

Market trends, seasonal demands, supply chain issues, new regulations, and so many other external factors can affect your organization’s ability to thrive. Analyze and determine what outside forces are affecting your business and start thinking about ways to either negate or enhance their impact to your operations and productivity.

4. Get Hyped for Strategic Planning

Once you have gathered your data and performed your analysis, you should be ready to develop actionable strategies to best leverage the seasonality of your business. Based on your seasonal SWOT findings, you can tactically plan production schedules, launch marketing campaigns, create budgets, and allocate resources in alignment with slow and busy season dynamics.

5. Make Sure to Monitor

The key to effectively leveraging seasonal SWOT is to consistently monitor trends and regularly update collected data. Fluctuations in the market, global stressors, changes in customer behavior, new technology and other factors can alter your seasonal SWOT and strategy. So keep an eye on all the contributing influences that can affect your organization and operations.

Just about every seasonal business has inherent weaknesses related to those regular expected lulls. By upping the frequency of SWOT analysis, owners of even the most seasonal companies can create a smart and informed strategy all year long.