The aim of the Interim Assignment is for you to show you can collect data about an organisation from a variety of sources, analyse it objectively, and, using recommended good practice, produce a practical, effective, strategic SWOT analysis.
A poor SWOT will be done if you simply make a personal guess and list several factors. A good SWOT will be based on a good range of data, both hard and soft data, and will follow recommended good practice. What is recommended good practice for producing an effective SWOT? Do some research into what experts say is good and bad SWOT practice. You will find examples on the web of good, and bad, SWOTs for organisations like yours. E.g.
https://strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/swot-analysis-how-to-do-it.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272353031_SWOT_Analysis
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/12/20/swot-analysis
As for ‘hard data’, for the Os and Ts of the SWOT, consider the sort of PESTLE and five forces data that your company management must collect about the outside world for it to make strategic choices. Who are the competitors? What makes them successful or unsuccessful? Is the number of potential customers for your products/services increasing? How are customer tastes evolving? What technology changes will impact your products/services over the company years? Any new laws or taxes in the pipeline? There are many questions I expect management would like data/answers on.
For the Interim Assignment, you must collect and analyse data using PESTLE, Five Forces and competitor analysis, Core Competency analysis, and Value Chain analysis. You may also use other frameworks to enrichen your analysis.
Where can you get data? Internal organisation reports, published industry reports, financial analyst reports, commentaries by industry journalists in the business press, discussions with colleagues, reports from e.g. McKinsey, Deloittes. You must do some searching on the web (google eg “IVD trends 2022”, “medtech trends 2022”). We are not expecting great depth for the Interim Assignment, but we are expecting the SWOT to be a concise and effective summary of the current situation of the organisation, and you will have to provide evidence for each statement you make in the SWOT
As for internal hard data, I expect some Ss and Ts are known by management.
For the Ss, how do they compare with the competition? How do they compare with what experts say should be done. You can turn a ‘soft’ opinion into something harder i.e. more concrete, by comparing your view to something else, to the competition or to what is accepted as good practice.
If you work for a large organisation, consider focusing on producing the SWOT for one strategic business unit, and if the organisation is operating in several locations, consider focusing on one geographical area.
We will focus on the Diagnostics unit and on Belgium
The overall structure for the Interim Assignment should be as follows:
1. Cover Page (1 page) NOT NEEDED, I WILL DO THIS MYSELF
2. Table of Contents/List of Appendices (1 page)
3. Introduction to the organisation. One or two paragraphs briefly saying what the organisation does and how it is organised.
4. SWOT in a conventional matrix format. Only give the 3 most important items for each S, W, O and T.
5. An explanation of how the SWOT was produced, where the data was collected from, and how you chose the top 3 items for each S, W, O and T. You need to provide evidence to support your analysis.
6. Recommendations how the organisation might address the issues identified in the SWOT. Produce a TOWS matrix. e.g. https://ceopedia.org/index.php/TOWS_analysis
7. A statement saying which strategic concept you are thinking about focusing on in the final assignment. This is just to give me an idea of your thinking. You can change your choice later if you want.
8. List of references
9. Appendices, if any
You should be able to produce an effective Interim Assignment in 1000-1500 words.
We will work on the company Hologic, focusing on the Dioagnostics unit and on Belgium.