/swot-analysis

name: swot-analysis
argument-hint: "[company and scope, and the decision it supports]"
description: "Build an evidence-cited SWOT of one company — yours or a competitor's — from public sources, ending with the S-O/W-T crossings. Use for strategy reviews, board prep, or competitor depth."
intent: >-
  An evidence-cited SWOT from the public record: strengths and weaknesses from documented capability
  and customer voice, opportunities and threats from market and macro signals — every entry labeled
  and sourced, closing with the S-O attack and W-T exposure crossings that most SWOTs skip.
type: workflow
theme: market-intelligence
best_for:
  - "Strategy reviews and board prep that need a defensible read on one company's position"
  - "Competitor depth after a snapshot has identified who matters"
  - "Partnership or acquisition evaluation grounded in evidence, not impressions"
scenarios:
  - "SWOT our biggest competitor before the strategy offsite — from public evidence"
  - "We're evaluating a partnership with [company]; what does the public record say about their position?"
estimated_time: "20-35 min per run"

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):** [we