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Almost every organization or company out there, use a SWOT analysis in their business planning and this could be a useful tool to use in the ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS) certification standard as well. ISO 9001 certification needs an organization to pinpoint major problems, risks, and opportunities, which is precisely what the SWOT analysis will do. Which is why ISO 9001 can use SWOT analysis as a very useful tool to address the preceding needs of ISO 9001 QMS standard.
SWOT analysis is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis of any organization or business. SWOT analysis is a systematic and pragmatic approach to an organization or a company to pinpoint the most potent strengths and weaknesses of the organization, at the time to jot down the external opportunities and threats that have an effect on your organization. As a strategic planning approach, this tool is employed to apprehend the competitive position of your organization, that allows you to recognize things which can be addressed to mend current issues and develop the future efficiently.
Generally, SWOT analysis is employed as a group action much more like brainstorming session as it will assist top management to identify where they are doing really well and where they need to improve. In other words, if a matter or process is internal and useful, it is considered as a strength of the organization. But, if it is internal and harmful, it should be pinpointed as a weakness. Likewise, if a matter or process is external and potentially useful, it is then considered as an opportunity, and if it is external and harmful, it is the threat to your organization.
Once SWOT analysis is done and all external and internal problems or issues are assessed. For internal strengths, your organization must come up with a way to use this to your organization's advantage? And for weaknesses, your organization ought to take action to nullify these weaknesses in a way that doesn't cause any harm or damage. With external opportunities, your organization must need to take action to capitalize or to capture these positive changes, as well as consider taking some risk to utilize them. And for threats, your organization must devise necessary action or plan to prevent these negative risks from occurring.
To efficiently use SWOT analysis with ISO 9001 certification, there are totally three clauses in QMS which will be addressed by devising SWOT analysis technique. The understanding the nature of an organization and its context, which needs you to work out the internal and external problems that are pertaining to the QMS. Analyzing risks related to QMS and other risks to your organization as well, that asks you to assess other management system risks which are called as “threats” in SWOT analysis. The assessment of an organization's QMS opportunities and other opportunities for your organization in any means, in this you need to assess what you will do regarding opportunities for enhancing ISO 9001 QMS performance. SWOT analysis isn't accustomed to assess risks and opportunities rather it is used to determine the risks and opportunities that need to be rectified.
So, when you devise SWOT analysis with focus on your organization's ISO 9001 QMS, you will be able to determine the internal and external problems that may affect your QMS and also the ability to satisfy your organization's performance and goals. With SWOT analysis, you can effectively determine the risks and opportunities that are needed to be considered for the long run of ISO 9001 QMS certification. SWOT analysis is a very useful tool which can be used to determine and narrow down strength, weakness, opportunities and threat from all areas of your organization in relation to ISO 9001 QMS standard.
One thing that needs to be remembered is that these clauses of the ISO 9001 standard are common to all or any of the ISO standards, therefore the SWOT analysis is often used to pinpoint internal and external strength, weakness, opportunities, and risks for all of the various management systems you decide to implement. If you have an ISO 14001 EMS certification, then your SWOT analysis will concentrate on environmental performance.
SWOT analysis could be a tool that will be very useful, at the same time, it is up to you to figure out if it is the right tool for your organization. The ISO standards don't tell you how to satisfy the requirements, therefore if a SWOT analysis helps your company to enhance, then use it to the fullest potential to enhance the performance of your organization.