SWOT analysis — Edexcel A-Level Business
Test yourself on SWOT analysis with PEARSON EDEXCEL A-Level practice questions.
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SWOT analysis explained
The grid separates what the business controls from what is happening to it, and on its own it produces only an agenda; the thinking starts when the quadrants are read against each other.
Read the full explanation
A strong point is only strong against a named rival, so national scale looks powerful beside an independent and weak beside a global chain. The decision use is matching: use what the firm is good at to take an opening, and fix or hedge the soft spot that an outside threat would expose. A cash rich firm facing a fast growing overseas market has a match; a heavily geared firm facing rising interest rates has an exposure. The limits are why examiners set it. The lists are subjective and unweighted, and they are a snapshot, so two managers write different ones and last year's opening is this year's danger.
Your focus
- a) SWOT analysis: internal considerations: strengths and weaknesses; external considerations: opportunities and threats
SWOT analysis exam tips
Marking Points
- Sort correctly, since anything the business owns or controls belongs inside and anything in the market, economy or law belongs outside, and misfiling loses the mark outright.
- Use case evidence for every entry rather than generic items, naming the falling operating margin or the new trade agreement rather than writing good brand and rising costs.
- Move past the list by pairing quadrants, showing how one specific strength lets this business exploit one specific opening, or how a weakness turns a threat into a crisis.
- Evaluate the tool, noting that nothing in it says which entry matters most, so a judgement must name the dominant factor and the condition under which that would change.
Examiner Tips
- 💡It often frames the twenty mark strategy essay even when the word never appears, so use the quadrants to plan and the extract to fill them.
- 💡One well developed pairing beats a page of bullet points, because examiners reward the chain from evidence to consequence for the named business.
- 💡Close by saying which factor is most significant and what would have to change for that ranking to change, since that is the top band judgement.
Common Mistakes
- Filing competitors, legislation or a recession as weaknesses, and the firm's own poor cash flow as a threat, which reverses the whole framework.
- Producing a long unprioritised list, which reads as knowledge and earns none of the analysis or evaluation marks available.
- Assuming every strong point is relevant, when one that customers do not value changes no decision at all.