Business leaders are always looking for new opportunities to cut costs or increase profits. However, these opportunities can only be discussed during strategic meetings, often doing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (also known as SWOT) analysis. SWOT is a great tool for leaders to see where the business has been, where it is now, and where it could go. However, the SWOT result falls short when some of the identified opportunities may not be immediately exploited. This may be because management feels they need to do more research before proceeding with an opportunity. This follow-up investigation can take a lot of time, effort, money, and possibly result in missed opportunities. Instead, decide if additional research is needed and what opportunities can be implemented immediately by following the SWOT exercise with a quick Benefits and Barriers (BB) review.

To do a BB review, simply make a T-chart with each opportunity listed at the top of a separate page. Then put the words “Benefits” on the left side of the T and “Barriers” on the right side. Once the chart template is ready, leaders can start brainstorming ideas to place on each side of the chart.

• Benefit Examples: quick cash in, easy to do, increased profits, already experienced, low implementation cost, matches long-term goals/objectives, can use existing equipment, cost savings, strong market for product, easy to sell, fits into corporate values, improves customer satisfaction, etc.
• barrier Examples: expensive to implement, inexperienced, training required, quality issues, special equipment needed, expensive to implement, takes too long, government restrictions, out of current customer base, legal issues, additional insurance required, more space etc

Once the ideas for the chart are exhausted, leaders can easily see where the benefits outweigh the barriers to quickly implementing some opportunities. If the barriers are much greater than the benefits, it may not be worth pursuing those opportunities at this time. When the benefits and barriers appear equal, further investigation may be warranted to make a decision and determine the potential return on investment. For those opportunities that will not be implemented immediately and still look promising, leadership can now make a plan to overcome the barriers so that the business can reap future benefits.

An alternative method to quickly analyze each opportunity during a strategy meeting is to divide the leadership team into subgroups of three or four people. Each subgroup would be assigned two or three of the most interesting opportunities to make a BB chart in a short period of time. Once the charts are complete, the subgroups would come together into the larger leadership team to vote on which opportunities to pursue, which to investigate further, and which to drop for now.

SWOT analysis is a useful tool for business leaders to determine where the business is and where they want it to go. Don’t stop there though, as you can miss out on easy opportunities by trying to do too much research before starting them. Instead, use the BB chart to identify the benefits and barriers to potential opportunities. This charting method allows for quick execution of those opportunities that will quickly result in immediate business benefits. As well as identifying which opportunities are worth the extra time and research effort versus those that may not be as advantageous as they seem when presented to business leaders.