A SOAR analysis is a technique that helps businesses at a strategic planning level to:
Focus on what they are doing right.
Determine which skills could be enhanced.
Understand the desires and motivations of their stakeholders.
SOAR Analysis
Description
Analysis
Implications
Applications
Examples
1. Overview
SOAR Analysis is a strategic planning framework that focuses on identifying Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results to create a positive future-oriented strategy.
– Identify and assess internal strengths and opportunities, as well as external aspirations and desired results. – Emphasizes positive, future-driven thinking.
– Aims to leverage strengths and opportunities to achieve aspirational goals. – Encourages a proactive and optimistic approach to strategy development.
– Strategic planning for organizations seeking growth and innovation. – Crafting a vision for a new project or initiative. – Identifying pathways for personal development and career planning.
Developing a strategic plan to launch a new product in a competitive market. Defining a vision for organizational growth and expansion.
2. Strengths (S)
Strengths represent the internal attributes, capabilities, or resources that give an organization or individual a competitive advantage.
– Identify and assess strengths in terms of expertise, assets, skills, or advantages. – Consider what sets the entity apart from others in a positive way.
– Recognizes areas of excellence and core competencies that can be leveraged. – Provides a foundation for building a strategy based on existing strengths.
– Identifying and leveraging an organization’s core competencies in the market. – Understanding individual strengths and how to utilize them for career advancement. – Assessing the strengths of a team to optimize project outcomes.
Recognizing a company’s strong customer loyalty and brand reputation. Identifying an individual’s excellent problem-solving skills.
3. Opportunities (O)
Opportunities are external factors or conditions that can be leveraged to achieve desired goals or objectives.
– Identify and assess external opportunities, including market trends, emerging technologies, or changing customer needs. – Consider factors that can be leveraged.
– Helps organizations stay proactive by identifying favorable conditions in the environment. – Guides strategic actions to capitalize on external opportunities.
– Identifying new market segments for business expansion. – Exploring emerging technologies to gain a competitive edge. – Assessing industry trends to identify opportunities for innovation.
Recognizing a growing demand for sustainable products in the market. Identifying a gap in the market for a unique service offering.
4. Aspirations (A)
Aspirations are long-term, forward-looking goals, visions, or desired outcomes that an entity aims to achieve.
– Define and articulate aspirations, often in terms of a compelling vision or mission statement. – Set ambitious yet achievable goals for the future.
– Provides a clear sense of direction and purpose for the entity. – Motivates and aligns stakeholders toward a shared vision. – Helps prioritize actions that lead to the realization of aspirations.
– Creating a vision statement for an organization’s future growth and impact. – Defining personal and professional long-term goals and objectives. – Establishing a project’s overarching mission and desired outcomes.
Crafting a vision statement that aims to become the global leader in sustainable technology solutions. Setting a personal aspiration to become a recognized thought leader in a specific field.
5. Results (R)
Results represent the tangible outcomes, achievements, or indicators that demonstrate progress toward the defined aspirations and goals.
– Define key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics that reflect progress and success. – Monitor and measure outcomes that align with the defined aspirations.
– Allows for continuous tracking and assessment of progress toward desired results. – Ensures accountability and the ability to adjust strategies if results are not being achieved.
– Monitoring and reporting on KPIs to assess business performance and goal attainment. – Tracking personal progress and accomplishments in relation to career aspirations. – Evaluating project outcomes against established success criteria.
Achieving a 20% increase in annual revenue over the next three years. Reaching a personal goal of publishing a book within two years. Delivering a project on time and within budget, meeting all predefined success criteria.
The SOAR analysis is an acronym for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.
The analysis is a positive evaluation because a business focuses on what it is doing well and then takes steps to do more of it. In other words, they endeavor to build on strengths instead of correcting weaknesses.
The SOAR analysis can be created as a simple 2 x 2 matrix with the four resulting quadrants making up the acronym itself.
Let’s now have a more detailed look at each.
Strengths
Strengths are what a business does exceedingly well. They may relate to important assets, capabilities, resources, or accomplishments.
Strengths also relate to unique selling propositions and competitive advantage.
Opportunities
Opportunities are circumstances that a business can take advantage of to increase the odds of success – namely, those relating to market share and profitability.
What partnerships could a business create to enhance market share? What trends do they foresee, and how might any threats be reframed as opportunities to thrive?
Aspirations
Aspirations are visions that build on the strengths identified earlier. They must be challenging, inspiring, and meaningful.
That is, the business must be passionate about making a positive difference.
The organizations that take the time to create aspirations determine who they want to be and what they stand for.
Results
Once aspirations have been qualified, it is time to quantify them with results. Results inform businesses on whether they have achieved success by helping them clarify their visions and aspirations into tangible outcomes.
Advantages of a SOAR analysis
Forward-looking and strength-focused
Especially compared to the similar SWOT Analysis which focuses more resources on rectifying weaknesses.
Tangible goals
Incorporates tangible goals with facts regarding the business and market, unlike many other strategic frameworks.
Guidance
Provides important guidance on the future direction of the business when strengths and aspirations are identified.
Disadvantages of a SOAR analysis
Overlap
For businesses that have already defined a mission statement, the aspirations quadrant may be superfluous.
Wrong goals
The strength-centric focus of the SOAR analysis does not take into account marketplace competition, potentially leading businesses to focus on what makes them uncompetitive.
As a result, the organization may set and achieve goals (and define success) based on metrics that will result in them becoming very much unsuccessful.
SOAR vs. SWOT Analysis: What to use?
A SWOT Analysis is a framework used for evaluating the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can aid in identifying the problematic areas of your business so that you can maximize your opportunities. It will also alert you to the challenges your organization might face in the future.
The SWOT analysis looks at four factors: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
It aims to understand internal and external factors that make up the business landscape in which the organization operates.
And based on that, it aims to create a qualitative assessment of the business strategy.
On the other hand, the SOAR analysis looks at Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.
Similarly to the SWOT, Strengths and Opportunities help the organization look into the internal and external positive factors that make up its business landscape.
While on the other hand, identifying Aspirations and Results. In short, where the SWOT analysis looks at both positive and negative aspects of the business landscape.
Therefore, the SOAR, combined with the SWOT, can give a better representation for a proper assessment of the business landscape.
With the SWOT, you can assess both opportunities and threats.
With SOAR, you can devise an action plan based on strengths and opportunities ahead!
SOAR Analysis vs. PESTEL Analysis
The PESTEL analysis is a framework that can help marketers assess whether macro-economic factors are affecting an organization. This is a critical step that helps organizations identify potential threats and weaknesses that can be used in other frameworks such as SWOT or to gain a broader and better understanding of the overall marketing environment.
Where the SOAR analysis looks at the business context by analyzing the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results of a business.
The PESTELanalysis looks at the external business environment based on a few key macro factors:
Thus the PESTEL analysis framework, in combination with the SOAR analysis, can help have an internal and external assessment of the business landscape.
Amazon SOAR analysis case study
Below we will look at each of the four quadrants of the SOAR analysis matrix for the eCommerce company Amazon.
Amazon has a diversified business model. In 2023, Amazon generated nearly $575 billion in revenues while it posted a net profit of over $30 billion. Online stores contributed over 40% of Amazon revenues. Third-party Seller Services and Physical Stores generated the remaining. Amazon AWS, Subscription Services, and Advertising revenues play a significant role within Amazon as fast-growing segments.
Strengths
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world, so it is no surprise that the company possesses strengths in many different areas. Here are just a few of them:
Low-cost structure
Like all online companies, Amazon avoids the costs associated with selling products in physical retail outlets.
In combination with its vast distribution network, the company can sell more units without an increase in marginal costs and then pass those savings to consumers.
A core component of Amazon’s business model is how it accommodates third-party sellers who take advantage of the company’s fast shipping and traffic levels, among other perks.
As more sellers flock to Amazon’s platform, its retail market share increases which creates a positive feedback loop.
Opportunities
Since there is relatively little scope for Amazon to increase its online retail market share, a potential opportunity for the company is expansion into physical retail stores.
This may improve its competitiveness against big-box retailers such as Target and Best Buy.
It may also provide an opportunity for more consumers to engage with the Amazon brand.
Amazon has of course made several acquisitions in related industries to either increase market share or establish itself in a new industry.
Notable acquisitions include Whole Foods Market, Zappos, Kiva Systems, Souq, and Twitch.
The company has also made sizeable investments in electric and autonomous vehicles and a personalized shopper service for Prime members.
Aspirations
When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, he had aspirations to become the largest online book retailer in the United States.
While the company is now much more than a bookseller, a section of Amazon’s mission statement outlining an aspiration to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company” has remained more or less the same.
Amazon’s mission statement is to “serve consumers through online and physical stores and focus on selection, price, and convenience.” Amazon’s vision statement is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”
Today, the company’s mission statement also clarifies that Amazon wants to be the world’s best employer and also the safest place to work.
In addition to customer-centricity, Amazon also has a core focus on long-term thinking, invention, and operational excellence.
Uber is a is two-sided marketplace, a platform business model that connects drivers and riders, with an interface that has elements of gamification, that makes it easy for two sides to connect and transact. Uber makes money by collecting fees from the platform’s gross bookings.
Strengths
Many believe Uber to be a harmful disruptor of the taxi industry, but the tech company has nevertheless reimagined personal transportation and connected the digital and physical worlds to help people move around more easily.
Uber has also grown into a global platform of affiliated services such as Uber Eats, Uber for Business, and Uber Freight.
In the process, it has allowed thousands to earn an income and its detailed driver verification checks have made chauffeured transport safer and more attractive.
As the first mover, the company has cemented itself as a leader in an industry it created.
While Uber’s two primary drivers of growth are mobility (rides) and its delivery business, a third segment, Uber Freight, is an advanced logistics platform for shippers and carriers that is poised for growth.
Uber has also made several divestitures in recent years, particularly in risky, cash-burning assets such as Uber Elevate, Joby Aviation, and autonomous driving segment Aurora.
With extra liquidity, the company can then acquire other companies that are more related to its core offering. These are rides, mobility, and freight businesses such as Postmates, Drizly, Transplace, and the P2P car sharing platform Car Next Door.
Aspirations
Uber’s mission statement is to ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion.
Uber has a relatively lengthy mission statement, but in general, the company is in the relentless pursuit of helping people go anywhere, get anything, or earn an income.
Uber also wants to be a transportation company that operates “in a way that’s sustainable for our planet.
And regardless of your gender, race, religion, abilities, or sexual orientation, we champion your right to move and earn freely without fear.”
In addition to providing a safe and reliable way for people to move around, the company also wants to remove barriers to healthcare and enable companies to provide a seamless travel experience for their employees.
Results
Uber’s dominant market share speaks for itself, but the fact that the company was able to weather COVID-19 and high inflation surprised many analysts.
Uber’s vision to allow ordinary drivers to make an income is also flourishing, despite more expensive gasoline prices and continued involvement in various legal disputes.
A SOAR analysis is an approach to strategic thinking where a business constructs its future through collaboration, understanding, and action.
A SOAR analysis is visually represented by a four quadrant matrix containing the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results of a business.
The SOAR analysis is a forward-looking strategy that links somewhat intangible strengths and aspirations with a more tangible goal setting. However, the strength-centric nature of the analysis may blind the organization to external factors or give it an inaccurate view of success.
Key Highlights
SOAR Analysis Overview:
SOAR stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.
It is a strategic planning technique that focuses on positive aspects and opportunities within a business.
Positive and Forward-Looking Approach:
Unlike SWOT analysis which also looks at weaknesses and threats, SOAR solely concentrates on strengths and opportunities.
It encourages a forward-looking and proactive mindset.
Four Quadrants:
A SOAR analysis is often presented in a four-quadrant matrix.
The four quadrants represent Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.
Strengths:
Focuses on the business’s internal capabilities, assets, resources, and unique selling points.
Identifies what the organization excels at and can build upon.
Opportunities:
Explores external factors that can be leveraged to enhance the business’s success.
Considers market trends, partnerships, and ways to grow.
Aspirations:
Encompasses the vision and meaningful goals that align with the business’s strengths and opportunities.
Reflects the organization’s desire to make a positive impact and stand for something meaningful.
Results:
Transforms aspirations into tangible outcomes and measurable achievements.
Guides the organization in quantifying success and progress.
Advantages of SOAR:
A positive and strength-focused approach encourages innovation and growth.
Tangible goals are established based on facts and opportunities.
Provides clear guidance for future business directions.
Disadvantages of SOAR:
May overlook weaknesses and external threats.
Can lead to a skewed view of success if not balanced with external realities.
SOAR vs. SWOT Analysis:
While SWOT considers Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, SOAR focuses only on Strengths and Opportunities.
SOAR is more positive and forward-looking, while SWOT takes a comprehensive view of internal and external factors.
A combination of both can provide a well-rounded assessment of the business landscape.
SOAR vs. PESTEL Analysis:
PESTEL focuses on external macro-economic factors: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal.
SOAR analyzes internal strengths and external opportunities, offering a more positive perspective.
Combining SOAR with PESTEL provides a comprehensive assessment of both internal and external aspects.
Amazon SOAR Analysis Case Study:
Amazon’s strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results are analyzed.
Highlights Amazon’s low-cost structure, vast product selection, and platform attractiveness.
Discusses its expansion into physical retail and acquisitions.
Uber SOAR Analysis Case Study:
Uber’s strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results are examined.
Emphasizes Uber’s disruptive impact on transportation and global reach.
Explores its growth into related segments like Uber Eats and Uber Freight.
Key Takeaways:
SOAR analysis is a positive, forward-looking approach to strategic planning.
It focuses on building on strengths and capitalizing on opportunities.
Balancing SOAR with external realities is important for a well-rounded assessment.
Companion Frameworks
Definition
Focus
Application
SOAR Analysis
SOAR Analysis is a strategic planning tool that stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results. Unlike traditional SWOT analysis, which also includes weaknesses and threats, SOAR focuses exclusively on positive aspects. It aims to identify and leverage an organization’s strengths and opportunities, articulate its aspirations or vision for the future, and outline the desired results or outcomes to achieve strategic success.
Focuses on identifying and leveraging an organization’s strengths and opportunities, articulating its aspirations for the future, and defining desired results or outcomes to achieve strategic success.
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to a business venture or project. SWOT analysis helps organizations assess internal capabilities and external factors to formulate strategies and make informed decisions.
Focuses on analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats to develop strategies that leverage strengths, mitigate weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and address threats effectively.
Strategic Planning, Business Analysis, Decision-making
PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE analysis is a strategic tool used to analyze and understand the external macro-environmental factors that impact an organization or market. PESTLE stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors, providing insights into the broader context of business operations.
Focuses on identifying and evaluating external factors and trends in the business environment to anticipate opportunities, threats, and regulatory challenges, guiding strategic planning and decision-making.
Porter’s Five Forces is a framework developed by Michael Porter to analyze the competitive forces within an industry. Porter identified five forces: Threat of New Entrants, Bargaining Power of Buyers, Bargaining Power of Suppliers, Threat of Substitute Products, and Intensity of Competitive Rivalry.
Focuses on assessing the competitive dynamics and attractiveness of an industry by analyzing the forces that shape competition, helping organizations understand their competitive position and formulate strategies for sustainable competitive advantage.
Industry Analysis, Competitive Strategy, Market Positioning
McKinsey 7S Framework
The McKinsey 7S Framework is a management model developed by McKinsey & Company that identifies seven internal elements critical to organizational effectiveness: Strategy, Structure, Systems, Shared Values, Skills, Style, and Staff. The 7S Framework helps organizations diagnose alignment issues and drive change.
Focuses on analyzing the interrelationships between strategy, structure, systems, shared values, skills, style, and staff within an organization to diagnose alignment issues and drive organizational change and performance improvement.
Value Chain Analysis is a strategic analysis framework that examines the activities and processes within a company’s value chain to identify sources of competitive advantage and opportunities for cost reduction or differentiation. Value chain analysis categorizes activities as primary or support functions.
Focuses on understanding the sequence of activities and processes involved in delivering value to customers, identifying areas for optimization, cost reduction, or value enhancement to strengthen the company’s competitive position.
Strategic Planning, Process Optimization, Cost Management
Balanced Scorecard (BSC)
The Balanced Scorecard is a strategic performance management framework developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. The Balanced Scorecard translates an organization’s strategy into a set of balanced performance measures across four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, and Learning & Growth.
Focuses on aligning strategic objectives and performance measures across multiple dimensions to monitor and manage organizational performance effectively.
Blue Ocean Strategy is a strategic planning approach that emphasizes creating uncontested market space by innovating and offering unique value propositions. Blue ocean strategy focuses on simultaneously reducing costs and increasing value for customers to create new demand and unlock new market opportunities.
Focuses on identifying and tapping into new market spaces with limited competition, allowing companies to differentiate themselves and capture uncontested market share, driving sustainable growth and profitability.
Scenario Analysis is a strategic planning technique used to explore alternative future scenarios and their potential implications on business outcomes. Scenario analysis involves developing and analyzing multiple plausible scenarios based on different assumptions or driving forces, helping organizations anticipate and prepare for a range of possible futures.
Focuses on understanding and planning for uncertainty by exploring different future scenarios, evaluating their potential impacts, and developing strategies to adapt and respond effectively to changing conditions or events.
Strategic
What is the difference between SWOT and SOAR analysis?
The SWOT analysis looks at four factors: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SOAR analysis looks at Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results. The SWOT analysis looks at the business landscape’s positive and negative aspects. The SOAR analysis focuses on the positive side.
Why is SOAR analysis better than SWOT?
Since the SOAR analysis focuses on the positive side, adding in the mix of Aspirations and Results is an actionable framework compared to the SWOT analysis, primarily to understand the market’s landscape. Instead, the SOAR takes a step further by enabling a business to set further actions based on the context.
Why SOAR analysis is important?
The SOAR analysis is a helpful framework. Combined with other frameworks like SWOT, it can be actionable and help an organization understand what steps to take in the marketplace to build a competitive position.
A failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a structured approach to identifying design failures in a product or process. Developed in the 1950s, the failure mode and effects analysis is one the earliest methodologies of its kind. It enables organizations to anticipate a range of potential failures during the design stage.
Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
Business valuations involve a formal analysis of the key operational aspects of a business. A business valuation is an analysis used to determine the economic value of a business or company unit. It’s important to note that valuations are one part science and one part art. Analysts use professional judgment to consider the financial performance of a business with respect to local, national, or global economic conditions. They will also consider the total value of assets and liabilities, in addition to patented or proprietary technology.
A paired comparison analysis is used to rate or rank options where evaluation criteria are subjective by nature. The analysis is particularly useful when there is a lack of clear priorities or objective data to base decisions on. A paired comparison analysis evaluates a range of options by comparing them against each other.
The Monte Carlo analysis is a quantitative risk management technique. The Monte Carlo analysis was developed by nuclear scientist Stanislaw Ulam in 1940 as work progressed on the atom bomb. The analysis first considers the impact of certain risks on project management such as time or budgetary constraints. Then, a computerized mathematical output gives businesses a range of possible outcomes and their probability of occurrence.
A cost-benefit analysis is a process a business can use to analyze decisions according to the costs associated with making that decision. For a cost analysis to be effective it’s important to articulate the project in the simplest terms possible, identify the costs, determine the benefits of project implementation, assess the alternatives.
The CATWOE analysis is a problem-solving strategy that asks businesses to look at an issue from six different perspectives. The CATWOE analysis is an in-depth and holistic approach to problem-solving because it enables businesses to consider all perspectives. This often forces management out of habitual ways of thinking that would otherwise hinder growth and profitability. Most importantly, the CATWOE analysis allows businesses to combine multiple perspectives into a single, unifying solution.
It’s possible to identify the key players that overlap with a company’s business model with a competitor analysis. This overlapping can be analyzed in terms of key customers, technologies, distribution, and financial models. When all those elements are analyzed, it is possible to map all the facets of competition for a tech business model to understand better where a business stands in the marketplace and its possible future developments.
The Pareto Analysis is a statistical analysis used in business decision making that identifies a certain number of input factors that have the greatest impact on income. It is based on the similarly named Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of the effect of something can be attributed to just 20% of the drivers.
A comparable company analysis is a process that enables the identification of similar organizations to be used as a comparison to understand the business and financial performance of the target company. To find comparables you can look at two key profiles: the business and financial profile. From the comparable company analysis it is possible to understand the competitive landscape of the target organization.
A SWOT Analysis is a framework used for evaluating the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can aid in identifying the problematic areas of your business so that you can maximize your opportunities. It will also alert you to the challenges your organization might face in the future.
The PESTEL analysis is a framework that can help marketers assess whether macro-economic factors are affecting an organization. This is a critical step that helps organizations identify potential threats and weaknesses that can be used in other frameworks such as SWOT or to gain a broader and better understanding of the overall marketing environment.
Business analysis is a research discipline that helps driving change within an organization by identifying the key elements and processes that drive value. Business analysis can also be used in Identifying new business opportunities or how to take advantage of existing business opportunities to grow your business in the marketplace.
In corporate finance, the financial structure is how corporations finance their assets (usually either through debt or equity). For the sake of reverse engineering businesses, we want to look at three critical elements to determine the model used to sustain its assets: cost structure, profitability, and cash flow generation.
Financial modeling involves the analysis of accounting, finance, and business data to predict future financial performance. Financial modeling is often used in valuation, which consists of estimating the value in dollar terms of a company based on several parameters. Some of the most common financial models comprise discounted cash flows, the M&A model, and the CCA model.
Value investing is an investment philosophy that looks at companies’ fundamentals, to discover those companies whose intrinsic value is higher than what the market is currently pricing, in short value investing tries to evaluate a business by starting by its fundamentals.
The Buffet Indicator is a measure of the total value of all publicly-traded stocks in a country divided by that country’s GDP. It’s a measure and ratio to evaluate whether a market is undervalued or overvalued. It’s one of Warren Buffet’s favorite measures as a warning that financial markets might be overvalued and riskier.
Financial accounting is a subdiscipline within accounting that helps organizations provide reporting related to three critical areas of a business: its assets and liabilities (balance sheet), its revenues and expenses (income statement), and its cash flows (cash flow statement). Together those areas can be used for internal and external purposes.
Post-mortem analyses review projects from start to finish to determine process improvements and ensure that inefficiencies are not repeated in the future. In the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), this process is referred to as “lessons learned”.
Retrospective analyses are held after a project to determine what worked well and what did not. They are also conducted at the end of an iteration in Agile project management. Agile practitioners call these meetings retrospectives or retros. They are an effective way to check the pulse of a project team, reflect on the work performed to date, and reach a consensus on how to tackle the next sprint cycle.
In essence, a root cause analysis involves the identification of problem root causes to devise the most effective solutions. Note that the root cause is an underlying factor that sets the problem in motion or causes a particular situation such as non-conformance.
A break-even analysis is commonly used to determine the point at which a new product or service will become profitable. The analysis is a financial calculation that tells the business how many products it must sell to cover its production costs. A break-even analysis is a small business accounting process that tells the business what it needs to do to break even or recoup its initial investment.
Stanford University Professor Ronald A. Howard first defined decision analysis as a profession in 1964. Over the ensuing decades, Howard has supervised many doctoral theses on the subject across topics including nuclear waste disposal, investment planning, hurricane seeding, and research strategy. Decision analysis (DA) is a systematic, visual, and quantitative decision-making approach where all aspects of a decision are evaluated before making an optimal choice.
A DESTEP analysis is a framework used by businesses to understand their external environment and the issues which may impact them. The DESTEP analysis is an extension of the popular PEST analysis created by Harvard Business School professor Francis J. Aguilar. The DESTEP analysis groups external factors into six categories: demographic, economic, socio-cultural, technological, ecological, and political.
The STEEP analysis is a tool used to map the external factors that impact an organization. STEEP stands for the five key areas on which the analysis focuses: socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental/ecological, and political. Usually, the STEEP analysis is complementary or alternative to other methods such as SWOT or PESTEL analyses.
The STEEPLE analysis is a variation of the STEEP analysis. Where the step analysis comprises socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental/ecological, and political factors as the base of the analysis. The STEEPLE analysis adds other two factors such as Legal and Ethical.
Activity-based management (ABM) is a framework for determining the profitability of every aspect of a business. The end goal is to maximize organizational strengths while minimizing or eliminating weaknesses. Activity-based management can be described in the following steps: identification and analysis, evaluation and identification of areas of improvement.
PMESII-PT is a tool that helps users organize large amounts of operations information. PMESII-PT is an environmental scanning and monitoring technique, like the SWOT, PESTLE, and QUEST analysis. Developed by the United States Army, used as a way to execute a more complex strategy in foreign countries with a complex and uncertain context to map.
The SPACE (Strategic Position and Action Evaluation) analysis was developed by strategy academics Alan Rowe, Richard Mason, Karl Dickel, Richard Mann, and Robert Mockler. The particular focus of this framework is strategy formation as it relates to the competitive position of an organization. The SPACE analysis is a technique used in strategic management and planning.
A lotus diagram is a creative tool for ideation and brainstorming. The diagram identifies the key concepts from a broad topic for simple analysis or prioritization.
Functional decomposition is an analysis method where complex processes are examined by dividing them into their constituent parts. According to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK), functional decomposition “helps manage complexity and reduce uncertainty by breaking down processes, systems, functional areas, or deliverables into their simpler constituent parts and allowing each part to be analyzed independently.”
The multi-criteria analysis provides a systematic approach for ranking adaptation options against multiple decision criteria. These criteria are weighted to reflect their importance relative to other criteria. A multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is a decision-making framework suited to solving problems with many alternative courses of action.
A stakeholder analysis is a process where the participation, interest, and influence level of key project stakeholders is identified. A stakeholder analysis is used to leverage the support of key personnel and purposefully align project teams with wider organizational goals. The analysis can also be used to resolve potential sources of conflict before project commencement.
Strategic analysis is a process to understand the organization’s environment and competitive landscape to formulate informed business decisions, to plan for the organizational structure and long-term direction. Strategic planning is also useful to experiment with business model design and assess the fit with the long-term vision of the business.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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