One page before Station Road: Lena's Bakery Ltd opens its fourth shop, on Station Road, in September 2026. Before it does, Lena and Marco want one page that shows where the business stands.
What does the bakery do well? What does it do badly? And what is happening around it that could help or hurt?
That page is a four-box check of where a business stands (a SWOT analysis). Everything Lena and Marco know goes into one of four boxes: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
It is a tool for taking stock of the situation (a situational tool). It describes the business as it is today and the world around it. On its own, it does not say what to do.
Strengths
- Inside the business, and helps it
- What it does well or has that others lack
- Lena's: regulars queue at the High Street shop at seven every morning
Weaknesses
- Inside the business, and hurts it
- What it does badly or lacks
- Lena's: every loaf for every shop comes from one bakehouse, and one oven is failing
Opportunities
- Outside the business, and could help it
- Changes in customers, markets or the wider world it could use
- Lena's: about 1,850 people pass the station each morning, with no bakery near it
Threats
- Outside the business, and could hurt it
- Rivals, costs, laws or events it cannot control
- Lena's: Crumbline plc's kiosk inside the station sells a coffee and a pastry for $3.50
Read the boxes in two rows. The top row, strengths and weaknesses, is about the bakery itself: its bakers, ovens, shops, money and name (internal factors). The bottom row, opportunities and threats, is about the world around it: customers, rivals, suppliers, the economy and the law (external factors).
A SWOT analysis as a grid: the top row is inside the business (strengths and weaknesses), the bottom row is the world outside it (opportunities and threats).
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Two questions sort any fact: Is it inside the business or outside it? Inside goes in the top row, outside in the bottom row.
Does it help or hurt? Help goes on the left, as a strength or an opportunity. Hurt goes on the right, as a weakness or a threat.
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Jonas rings Lena from the Park Road shop. The landlord is putting up the rent.
The rent is one of the bakery's own costs, so it is tempting to call it a weakness. But nobody at Lena's Bakery decided it. The landlord did. That makes it a threat: it comes from outside, and Lena can only respond to it.
The test: could Lena change it by deciding to?: Yes, she could. Then it is inside the business (internal): a strength or a weakness. The bakers' skill, the state of the ovens, the recipes, the shops, the cash in the bank.
No, someone else decides it. Then it is outside (external): an opportunity or a threat. Customers' tastes, a rival's prices, the price of flour, a new law, the weather at harvest.
| Fact about Lena's Bakery | Who decides it? | Box |
|---|---|---|
| One of the Mill Lane ovens is failing | Lena: she can repair it or buy another | Weakness |
| Priti's team bakes fresh bread every night | Lena and Priti | Strength |
| The Park Road landlord raises the rent | The landlord | Threat |
| Two new cafés near the station want to stock the crackers | The cafés | Opportunity |
| Valley Grain warns that flour will cost more after a poor harvest | The harvest and the market | Threat |
| Goldcrust plc could open a bakery on the High Street | Goldcrust | Threat, even though it has not happened |
Three mix-ups: A plan is not an opportunity. 'Open a shop on Station Road' is something Lena does. The opportunity is the fact outside that makes it worth doing: 1,850 people a morning and no bakery near.
Bad news is not always a weakness. A failing oven is a weakness, because Lena can fix it. Dearer flour is a threat, because she cannot.
One fact, one box. If a point seems to fit two boxes, ask who decides it, and place it once.
There is also a difference in time. Strengths and weaknesses are true today: the oven is failing now. Opportunities and threats are things that may happen: Goldcrust might open on the High Street, the cafés might place an order. They belong in the SWOT because they could change the bakery's future.
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Marco has written down everything he knows about the business on one sheet. It reads like a case: a list of facts in no order. Turning it into a SWOT analysis is a skill of its own (constructing a SWOT).
Marco's notes
- Regulars queue at the High Street shop at seven every morning.
- Every loaf for all the shops is baked overnight at Mill Lane by Priti's team.
- The crackers sold 18,000 packets to cafés in 2025.
- One of the Mill Lane ovens is failing.
- Station Road will need about 250 loaves a night, taking Mill Lane from about 1,200 to 1,450.
- About 1,850 people pass through the station each morning, and there is no bakery near it.
- Two new cafés near the station have asked to stock the crackers.
- Crumbline plc's kiosk inside the station sells a coffee and a pastry for $3.50.
- Valley Grain warns that flour will cost more after a poor harvest.
- The Park Road landlord has raised the rent.
Building the SWOT from the notes
Pick out the facts that matter
Keep every fact that could help or hurt the business. Leave out background that does neither, such as the year the bakery opened.
Ask the two questions
Inside or outside: could Lena change it by deciding to? Helps or hurts? The answers place each fact in one box.
Write each point short and specific
Use a name or a number from the case, then a few words on why it matters. 'Loyal customers' could be any business; 'regulars queue at seven every morning' is this one.
Check the grid
No plans or actions in any box, no point in two boxes, and two or three points in each. Every box needs at least one.
| Helps the bakery | Hurts the bakery | |
|---|---|---|
| Inside: Lena can change it | Strengths. Regulars queue at High Street at seven, a loyal base. Fresh bread baked every night by Priti's team. The crackers already sell to cafés: 18,000 packets in 2025. | Weaknesses. One bakehouse bakes for every shop, so a breakdown empties all the shelves. One oven is failing just as Mill Lane must go from 1,200 to 1,450 loaves a night. |
| Outside: someone else decides it | Opportunities. About 1,850 commuters a morning and no bakery near the station. Two new cafés near the station want the crackers. | Threats. Crumbline plc's kiosk is already inside the station, at $3.50 for a coffee and a pastry. Flour will cost more after a poor harvest. Park Road's rent has gone up. |
A SWOT that only copies the case: Four boxes of facts lifted from the case, with nothing added, show that you can read, not that you understand the business.
Each point says why it matters: not just 'one oven is failing', but 'one oven is failing just as output must rise, so every shop is at risk of empty shelves'.
How this comes up: Short questions test the tool itself: define a SWOT analysis; explain why strengths and weaknesses are internal factors; construct a SWOT analysis for a business from a short case.
Then the case questions: explain two challenges facing the business, or one challenge of each of two kinds (a marketing one and a financial one, say), for six marks. Those challenges are the weaknesses and threats hiding in the case, so reading it the SWOT way is how you find them.
Three moves for each challenge
- Name the challenge. A weakness or a threat taken from the case: 'one oven at Mill Lane is failing'.
- Say why it is a challenge. The business idea behind it: what it does to costs, sales, staff, cash or the brand. A bakery that bakes everything in one place loses every shop's sales when that place stops.
- Show it in the case. A name or a number: output must rise from 1,200 to 1,450 loaves a night just as Station Road opens.
- Then the second challenge, a different one, in the same three moves.
Three traps: A fact is not yet a challenge. 'Crumbline has a kiosk in the station' names it. The second and third moves say why that hurts Lena's and show it with the case.
Two challenges, not one twice. A failing oven and a stretched bakehouse are the same problem. Pick a second from a different box or a different part of the business.
Explain, do not solve. Buying a new oven is an answer to a challenge, not a challenge.
Explain two challenges facing Lena's Bakery Ltd as it opens the Station Road shop.
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