Strategic Position 163
analysis. The scan describes what is happening in the outside world, and the
SWOT analysis makes sense of it at home.
A SWOT analysis does several important things. It picks out those features of
both the context and of the institution that represent threats and opportunities,
strengths and weaknesses. As it does so, it turns outward to focus on threats and
opportunities, and inward to examine its strengths and weaknesses. But in both
cases, the analysis is relational and contextual. One college’s threat is another’s
opportunity. Similarly, the strengths and weaknesses of an institution have greater
or less salience depending on external trends.
A SWOT workshop early in a strategy program can be especially useful. It
provides an opportunity for participants to begin to share insights based on
the institution’s story and vision and its strategic data. Based on the findings
of the environmental scan, the development of lists of strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats can be a productive exercise as a first step in the process
(cf. Bryson 1995).
Let us look first at ways of analyzing strengths and weaknesses, and subsequently
threats and opportunities. Colleges begin the task by reviewing a list of institu-
tional elements like the one included in our framework of the strategy process in
chapter 4. As we review the typical components, we find that tangible resources
are of critical importance, starting with the organization’s financial resources and
its space and place both with regard to the nature of the campus and its facilities
and its geographic location, either as resources or deficiencies, or often as both.
Other tangible resources such as technology, equipment, and collections also dif-
ferentiate an institution’s capacities. Human resources are at the core of an aca-
demic organization’s ability to create value, including the capacities of faculty and
staff. Relative levels of scope, quality, and achievement have to be assessed con-
cerning educational programs, including the curriculum, teaching and learning,
research, and student life. Systems and processes—especially those concerning
admissions, enrollment, image, constituency relationships, and fund-raising— are
critical success factors, as are the mechanisms of governance and decision making.
Organizational culture includes strengths and weaknesses regarding campus rela-
tionships, values, community, and identity. As a point of departure, it is logical to
create and debate lists of strengths and weaknesses around these elements (Alfred
et al. 2006; Sevier 2000).
But one must be cautious. Strengths and weaknesses come in many forms, some
of which are relatively trivial or have no particular strategic or competitive sig-
nificance. Many problems may simply be short-term operational issues or may
represent conflicts over governance or between personalities. A modest operat-
ing deficit for one year may not a strategic issue, while the inability to solve the
problem within a specified time period decidedly is. The tendency for negativism
and complaints to overwhelm an analysis is real, so the effort should be made to
move the discussion away from the symptoms of the problem to its causes. The aim
should be to find the distinctively strategic and structural forms of vulnerability