ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes that the planning team attempts to identify what their company does outstandingly well or badly, what its special abilities and disabilities are, where its advantages and disadvantages lie compared with its competitors. He emphasizes this point because many planning systems call for a detailed analysis of the company at this stage. The author continues to believe that this is a mistake. What is needed is a very crude, coarsegrained picture of the company. The chapter discusses the check-list of strengths and weaknesses for groups. It follows with some typical, simplified, examples of complete group strengths and weaknesses statements. The chapter describes number of technical and disciplined methods of identifying strengths and weaknesses, which are too time-consuming for the planning team to employ, but the planning assistant or a small working party might well find them useful in areas of particular concern.
