The value of swot in general and regarding planning

The Value of SWOT in General and Regarding Planning
SWOT basically provides an organization the environmental assessment of which it operates. It includes both the internal and external factors of an organization’s environment. The internal factors involve the internal capability of an organization as expressed by the strength and weakness of SWOT. The external environment of an organization is expressed in the opportunities and threats of the SWOT.
SWOT is essential in the planning stage of any management or marketing implement because it defines the internal and external environment of which the plan will be based. The efficacy of a plan depends on the accuracy of the assessment of the environment of which it will be applied as defined in the SWOT.
SWOT provides a reality check in the execution stage of any management or marketing implement. It fine tunes the execution as SWOT considers the new realities in the internal and external factor of the organization.
a) Extent to which the foregoing listed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are generic, ie. insofar as product and service providers are concerned?
SWOT can be generic in terms of the internal assessment (strength and weakness) in terms of assessing the competency of its people. It is usually expressed in general terms such as “ we have very talented people to execute the task”. In the weakness aspect, factors such as ailing equipments that can no longer perform the task adequately are expressed in general terms.
With regard to external factors, competition is typically expressed in general terms in the threat aspect of SWOT. Assessment of opportunity in SWOT can be expressed in general in terms of growth of companies if they will be successful in the identified market.
b) What SWOT considerations would you delete, change categorically, or add, if you were in the sports shoe industry and wished to be known as a socially responsible producer?
The threat factor would be removed in the SWOT in order to be known as a socially responsible producer of shoes. It is because the competition must be ruled out in the consciousness of the business that compels it to compromise social responsibility in exchange of competitiveness. Without any threat in mind, the business could focus on producing shoes that is genuinely consistent of the values of socially responsible producer.