Why using SWOT roadmapping
Two different tools in strategic planning: SWOT and roadmapping, have evolved quite independently so far, are taking into considerations in this research. The rationales for binding the two tools together are that not only can possibly solve the current business problems discussed earlier in this paper, but can also help to overcome current limitations in each of the tools. However, integrating these tools is not an easy task. Not only are they distinct from each other in scope, content and focus but also within the organizational level at which they are developed and implemented. Thus, blending them requires resolving a number of problems from architecture, to level and implementation. The discussion that follows will highlight their differences and justify the development of a newly developed technique: SWOT-roadmapping technique. The results of this discussion will lead to the development of a new prototype technique: SWOT-Roadmapping technique.
SWOT is widely recognized as a strategic planning tool at corporate and business level of businesses, while roadmapping rather falls in the level of operational and functional units. As a result, SWOT is usually used by managers from top management while roadmapping used by managers from functional and operational levels of an organization.
Because these two tools were previously used by managers from two different levels in an organization, their combination will link these two levels of managers together. The link would benefit organizations by improving their vertical coordination and communication systems. When top management imposes a new plan using a top-down approach, the lower first-level management might not follow exactly because they prefer a bottom-up approach. This problem could be overcome by applying SWOT in the roadmapping process to increase interaction between top-level and first-level managers.
SWOT is taking a macro perspective of businesses while roadmapping is taking a micro perspective of businesses. As a result, SWOT focuses on visionary matters, new investment issues, and future development and directions of business while roadmapping focuses on current resource limitation, effective implementation and action plan selection. Because SWOT is always regarded as visionary emphasis, and considering strategies from high level management position, thus, it has created many business plans that may not readily to be applied. Thus, it has always been perceived negatively from operational level managers who view it as too abstract and soft, touching only the surface, and lacking in terms of real practical substance. Meanwhile, roadmapping is rather paying more attention to operational detail and focusing on clarity in content. In addition, roadmapping helps in developing implementable strategies and action plans that could make the strategic plans to be realized. By combining the two tools, firms’ visionary objectives from SWOT will be linked to current resource constraints from roadmapping and grand strategies from SWOT will be supported by more practical and workable plans from roadmapping. Implementation of the combined tool could complement the weaknesses of each other.
SWOT considers a bigger environmental scope beyond the internal and operational functions of an organization. It helps managers to identify opportunities and threats from the business and economic environment that may be overlooked in roadmapping. SWOT enables companies’ managers to respond to changes in environment before too late. In this sense, SWOT enlarges the scope of roadmapping by providing a structure to capture and monitor broader context of strategy and enabling anticipation of wider range of possible environmental changes.
As compare to SWOT, roadmapping is not yet a popular tool and thus many users may not know how to apply it, where to start, and how to link the information. As a result, managers need assistant from experienced facilitators to use the tool and to avoid wrong interpretation. Unlike roadmapping, SWOT is taught in many business schools and appeared in many well-established strategic management text books for undergraduate and MBA students. Thus, by using a more well-known and established SWOT, managers could easily learn and use the tool for the development of a roadmap. Therefore, it would be easier to conduct roadmapping with the help of using SWOT analysis.
Roadmapping came in many formats. The selection process on which formats to use is not well understood. This has caused a problem in generating even the first roadmap. SWOT has only one format that cover four areas of strategic planning: strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. Thus, the SWOT four-quadrant framework is rather more easily understandable by managers and can complement the limitation in roadmapping.
One of the most serious weaknesses of roadmapping is that it is not become an on-going management tool in companies. This weakness can be improved by making the tool more usable by managers. Roadmapping tool pays too much attention on the hard aspect of tangible resources coordination and information link. It ignored the soft aspect of management such as human capital management, organizational behaviour, and culture. Thus, incorporating these features by applying SWOT that capture a wider scope of an organization (i.e. from environment to culture) could improve the application of the tool and subsequent usage by managers. In addition, the higher top management involvement will also improve the usage of roadmapping on an on-going basis. Traditionally, roadmapping exercise is usually participated by managers from functional department such as marketing, manufacturing and R&D, but not the top-level managers. As a result, top management may not clearly understand the benefits of roadmapping and have lack of interest and commitment. Consequently, this has created a barrier for the roadmapping process to be built-in into the existing company system and to be used in the company on an ongoing basis. Involvement of top management with applying SWOT could help to improve the usage of roadmapping.
In order to capture the information on strength, weakness, opportunity and threat across different time frame, managers would have to create a few matrixes to indicate information in the past, present and future. This work is time consuming and in addition, managers must produce a number of SWOT matrices in several separate sheets of papers. Roadmapping that emphasize a one-page solution of strategy, can help to overcome this problem. Thus, the drawbacks of SWOT matrix framework could be overcome by applying the roadmapping one-page framework.
The graphical representation of roadmapping on a wall chart is flexible and interesting as compare to SWOT’s bullet points. A roadmap enables managers to see the overall situation in just one-page diagram, and allows them to synthesize the overall strategies and crystallize their thoughts more easily.
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