TOWS Matrix Template
The TOWS Matrix template is a variation of the SWOT analysis that helps you analyze your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats so you can generate strategic options to move your business forward. The TOWS analysis is a powerful strategic tool to help you:
- Identify core values and opportunities that your organization excels at, and where you can improve.
- Define your whole organization’s strategic roadmap, or break it down to identify strategies for each department or team.
- Use it to analyze a process – marketing campaign. fundraising efforts, development workflow, etc.
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The TOWS Matrix template is a variation of the SWOT analysis that helps you analyze your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats so you can generate strategic options to move your business forward. The TOWS analysis is a powerful strategic tool to help you:
- Identify core values and opportunities that your organization excels at, and where you can improve.
- Define your whole organization’s strategic roadmap, or break it down to identify strategies for each department or team.
- Use it to analyze a process – marketing campaign. fundraising efforts, development workflow, etc.
BONUS 1: Read the TOWS matrix how-to guide.
How to create an impactful TOWS Matrix with Xtensio
- Click and start editing, no account or credit card required.
Follow along with the instructional template copy. Add charts, graphs, images and videos to customize your TOWS analysis. Drag & drop. Resize. It’s the easiest editor ever.
- Customize everything in the TOWS analysis template to match your brand.
Define your style guide; Add your (or your client’s) brand fonts. You can even grab colors directly from a website to quickly and easily brand your TOWS Matrix.
- Work on key details of your TOWS analysis together on the cloud.
Add colleagues (or clients) to collaborate on the online TOWS -(Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Strengths) Matrix template. Changes automatically save and sync across all devices, in real-time.
- Share a link. Present a slideshow. Embed. Download a PDF/PNG.
The TOWS analysis template seamlessly adapts to your workflow. No more jumping from tool-to-tool to create different types of deliverables.
- Reuse and repurpose.
Save your own custom online TOWS analysis template. Or copy and merge into other documents.
What is a TOWS Matrix?
The TOWS Matrix is a variation of the SWOT Analysis designed to uncover your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Taking the traditional SWOT Analysis a step further, the TOWS analysis specifically looks at the relationships between the different factors and categories to help you develop strategic solutions for your organization.
Both startups and large enterprises use the TOWS analysis approach as a primary strategic planning tool to match internal and external factors. This can assist your business in understanding how to drive growth, minimize damage, overcome weaknesses, and capitalize on your team’s strengths. This tool can be used for a variety of reasons, including:
- Identify core values and opportunities that your organization excels at, and where you can improve.
- Define your whole organization’s strategic roadmap, or break it down to identify strategies for each department or team.
- Use it to analyze a process – marketing campaign. fundraising efforts, development workflow, etc.
With Xtensio, you can easily generate a TOWS analysis tailored to fit your specific requirements. You can work hand-in-hand with your team on a live doc, leave feedback, or share a link to maintain visibility across your organization.
How do you turn a SWOT analysis into a TOWS analysis?
While a SWOT analysis is an effective tool for uncovering your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, the TOWS analysis helps you create actionable strategies from those findings.
The TOWS analysis allows you to connect the relationships between each quadrant of the matrix:
- Strengths to Opportunities: Emphasize your internal strengths to create more opportunities.
- Strengths to Threats: Take advantage of your strengths to foresee and resolve possible threats.
- Weaknesses to Opportunities: Overcome weaknesses and turn them into opportunities.
- Weaknesses to Threats: Determine the areas you need to improve and eliminate threats.
Related how-to guides and free templates!
You can construct a list of solutions for your team to implement by analyzing these relationships. Long-term plans should be broken down into steps with a clear timeframe or milestones so that you may make smarter judgments as you go.
By turning SWOT to TOWS analysis, you can generate more comprehensive insights for your organization. Remember, you can also use this tool in more granular aspects of your business like analyzing a marketing campaign, improving customer service or streamlining production flows. Remember to also do a Competitive Analysis with this free template.
What strategic options can the TOWS Matrix help me develop?
There are four strategic alternatives that can be developed from the TOWS analysis. Depending on your objectives and other environmental factors within the organization, use the strategies that best fit your situation.
- SO Situation or Maxi-Maxi Strategy: This strategy has the greatest potential for success because it focuses on using your organization’s internal strengths to maximize external opportunities. For example, if you have a cost advantage over competitors you could combine that with an opportunity to expand into another market.
- WO Situation or Mini-Maxi Strategy: In this situation, you can consider how market opportunities can be used to compensate for your organization’s deficiencies. If you own a design firm that specializes in branding but your team lacks the development abilities to make your work stand out, you may be able to outsource to a more specialized team.
- ST Situation or Maxi-Mini Strategy: Here, you’ll look at your company’s strengths to understand how you can avoid real and potential threats in the market. If you have a cost advantage but there’s a possible threat of lost profit margins due to external factors like seasonal trends or market fluctuations, you may want to develop strategies to leverage your product or service’s affordability to prevent slumps.
- WT Situation or Mini-Mini Strategy: In this defensive strategy, you’ll look at both your internal weaknesses and external threats to find ways to minimize both. This may mean you need to develop strategic partnerships or possibly rethink your business idea altogether.
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What would I use the TOWS Matrix for?
The goal of this exercise is to generate strategic options for maximizing your internal and external environment for optimal growth by helping you analyze your company’s opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses.
What info should I include in the TOWS analysis?
In the TOWS analysis that you create, you should include any and all information about your company’s strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities that your company can take advantage of to generate effective strategies for growth.
What is a living document?
The living documents such as a TOWS analysis allows you to instantly sync your entire team throughout the process. The document can easily be updated as your product or service evolves, and as your team optimizes the strategic process.
You can add collaborators to work in real-time. And you can share the customizable link to keep internal and external colleagues up-to-date as the project progresses.
Can I add colleagues to edit my TOWS Matrix?
Yes! With our premium plans, you can invite as many people as you’d like to collaborate on your TOWS analysis, ensuring your whole team is aligned. Here’s more on real-time collaboration.
How do I share my TOWS analysis?
When you’re ready to share your TOWS analysis with your management team and investors, choose between presenting it as a full-screen digital slideshow, sending it as a responsive web link or exporting it as a PDF or PNG. All of your share options are located at the top right of your edit screen. Learn more about the different ways to share your folios in this tutorial video.
Do you have other tools for business strategy?
We do! There are a number of different templates, examples and resources to guide you through defining and implementing your business strategy. Check out our Strategy toolbox to find more tools and resources.
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