Strategic Whiplash: How to Look Inside Your Company and Outside at Your Enemies Without Getting Dizzy

Andrew Talbot

Andrew Talbot

— 3 min read

In Product Management, you are constantly fighting a two-front war. You have the internal battles (resource constraints, tech debt, that one stakeholder who loves comic sans) and the external battles (competitors, angry customers, shifting markets).

If you try to fight these blind, you lose. You need a map.

That is where the "Big Two" frameworks come in: SWOT Analysis and Porter's Five Forces. One is a mirror to check yourself; the other is a pair of binoculars to spy on the enemy. Here is how to use them without sounding like a first-year MBA student.

Part 1: SWOT Analysis (The Mirror)

SWOT is the "Quick and Dirty" of strategy. It’s holistic, accessible, and gives you a snapshot of where you stand right now. It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Image of SWOT analysis matrix diagram

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Think of it as a diagnostic check engine light for your product.

  • Strengths (Internal): What are you actually good at?
    • Example: You have a proprietary algorithm that processes data 10x faster than anyone else. That’s a moat.
  • Weaknesses (Internal): Where do you suck? Be honest.
    • Example: Your customer support team is two people and a shared Gmail inbox. In the Enterprise world, that’s a weakness that will lose you contracts.
  • Opportunities (External): Where is the wind blowing?
    • Example: Everyone is moving to the cloud. If you build a cloud-native version of your tool, you can ride that wave.
  • Threats (External): What’s coming to kill you?
    • Example: AI technology is moving so fast that your manual data entry tool might be obsolete in six months.

The Catch: SWOT is subjective. If you have an arrogant team, your "Strengths" list will be long and your "Weaknesses" list will be empty. You need radical candor to make this work.

Part 2: Porter’s Five Forces (The Binoculars)

If SWOT is a selfie, Porter’s Five Forces is a satellite surveillance system. Developed by Michael Porter, this framework doesn't care about your feelings; it cares about Industry Profitability and Competition.

It forces you to look at the five specific pressures that determine if your industry is a gold mine or a trap.

1. Competitive Rivalry (The Cage Match) Who are you fighting? In B2B software, this is usually intense.

  • The Question: Is it a "winner take all" market, or is there room for everyone?

2. Threat of New Entrants (The Gatecrashers) How hard is it to start a company in your space?

  • The Reality: In the old days, you needed millions for servers. Now, a couple of devs with AWS credits (SaaS) can launch a competitor in a weekend. Your moat might be smaller than you think.

3. Bargaining Power of Buyers (The Clients) Who holds the purse strings?

  • The B2B Context: Enterprise clients have massive power. If Wal-Mart is 40% of your revenue, they own you. They can demand features, discounts, and custom SLAs.

4. Bargaining Power of Suppliers (The dependencies) Who do you rely on?

  • The Trap: If your entire product relies on an API from a single vendor, and they double their price, your business model just broke.

5. Threat of Substitutes (The Hidden Enemy) It’s not just about other software.

  • The Real Enemy: Often, your biggest competitor isn't another SaaS platform; it’s an Excel spreadsheet or a post-it note. If the buyer can solve the problem for free, they won't pay you.

Part 3: Putting It Together (The "InnovSoft" Case Study)

Let's look at a hypothetical B2B firm, "InnovSoft." They make project management software. Here is how they use both tools to stop flailing and start winning.

Using SWOT (The Internal Fix)

  • They found a Strength: Their dev team is elite, and the product is highly customizable.
  • They found a Weakness: Their international support is terrible.
  • The Move: They lean into customization to close deals but partner with local vendors to fix the support gap before they churn global clients.

Using Porter (The External Strategy)

  • They analyzed Buyers: Enterprise clients demand lower prices.
  • The Move: InnovSoft introduces tiered pricing. Small teams pay full price; huge enterprises get volume discounts (mitigating Buyer Power).
  • They analyzed New Entrants: Startups are popping up everywhere.
  • The Move: InnovSoft doubles down on AI-driven insights -- something expensive to build that two guys in a garage can't easily copy.

The Bottom Line: Which One Should You Use?

Use SWOT when:

  • You need a quick pulse check.
  • You are brainstorming with a diverse team.
  • You want to align internal resources.

Use Porter's Five Forces when:

  • You are entering a new market.
  • You need to understand why your profit margins are shrinking.
  • You are doing deep strategic planning for the next 3--5 years.

The Pro Move: Use both. Use Porter to understand the battlefield, and use SWOT to understand your army.

📝 Quick Cheat Sheet (For the Skimmers)

  • SWOT: Internal/External. Great for a quick overview.
  • Porter: All External. Great for deep industry analysis.
  • Buyer Power: In B2B, big clients have big leverage. Plan for it.
  • Substitutes: Never forget that "doing nothing" or "using Excel" is a competitor.
  • Supplier Power: Don't let one vendor hold your roadmap hostage.

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