Strategic Factor Analysis

Reduce a situation scan to fewer than ten weighted, rated and justified strategic factors, then derive candidate strategies from them. The governing judgement: a factor list without weights, ratings, evidence and time horizons is opinion, and a strategy that answers no weighted factor is unanchored.

Use When

• A business plan, marketing plan, turnaround plan or strategy review needs a disciplined situation analysis instead of a free-form SWOT.
• PESTEL drivers and five-forces ratings must be converted into EFAS (external) and IFAS (internal) weighted tables, condensed into an SFAS, and turned into a TOWS matrix.
• A marketing-plan situation analysis, section 04 key-driver summary or section 06 SWOT needs weighted factor evidence to consume.
• An existing SWOT has more than six items per box, parity strengths or generic opportunities and must be rebuilt.

Do Not Use When

• Use 06-competitive-analysis instead to write the plan's competitor section, competitor profiles and positioning narrative; this skill supplies its factor tables.
• Use meta-strategic-options-evaluation instead to choose between candidate strategies with SAFe, the strategy clock and the strategy-statement gate.
• Use 04-market-analysis instead to size a market; use meta-strategic-audit for a read-only diagnostic of an existing organisation's whole strategy.
• Do not use when no evidence exists about the market, competitors or the firm's own performance; return the evidence gap list instead.