Intended primarily for the FP&A professionals (Performance Management in Finance and Accounting Department), this course has the advantage of being suited to many other professionals with different backgrounds. If you have the motivation (intent) or the need (you were asked to by your superiors), leading a SWOT analysis for your company can be very beneficial.

If the benefits for the company are quite obvious, let's focus on the benefits it will bring you. One of the first benefits derived is the additional knowledge you will gain about your company and the environment in which it operates (customers, competitors, suppliers and other stakeholders). You will also gain exposure to the management (even to top management) and you get to influence important decisions in the company. If well done it will build upon your reputation as Business Partner. And last but not least, it should improve your collaboration with the other managers in your company and help you build your network. Should you have management aspirations, what better starting point than such an analysis.

Content wise, the course builds upon my experience. I tried to stay as further as possible from theoretical concepts because of several reasons. They are anyway available in a lot of specific literature or even online. Re-writing the same ideas will not be of too much added value for you. However, my practical experience will be worthy. And, besides having already so much literature on the topic available, you will, even when you try to take clear steps in doing this analysis, notice there are some particular difficulties. Being the simple "how do I start?" or the more complex "have I captured everything in my analysis?", the "how do I convince colleagues to help me?" question and even the holy-grail of the analysis "how can I tackle this points and make amendments / improvements?", I hope this course will provide you with the much required answers and inspiration needed for such a complex endeavor.