Compare methods

	SWOT-AHP Hybrid Analysis	Porter's Five Forces Industry Analysis
Field	Strategic Management	Strategic Management
Family	MCDM	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2000	1979
Originator	Mikko Kurttila, Mauno Pesonen, Jyrki Kangas & Miika Kajanus	Michael E. Porter
Type	Hybrid multi-criteria SWOT prioritization	Industry-attractiveness framework based on five competitive forces
Seminal source	Kurttila, M., Pesonen, M., Kangas, J., & Kajanus, M. (2000). Utilizing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in SWOT analysis — a hybrid method and its application to a forest-certification case. Forest Policy and Economics, 1(1), 41-52.	Porter, M. E. (1979). How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 57(2), 137-145.
Aliases	A'WOT Analysis, Quantified SWOT Analysis, AHP-Weighted SWOT, Hybrid SWOT-AHP Prioritization	Five Forces Framework, Porter Competitive Forces Analysis, Industry Attractiveness Analysis, Competitive Forces Model
Related	3	3
Summary	SWOT-AHP, also called A'WOT, is a hybrid strategy method that quantifies an ordinary SWOT analysis by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process to its factors. Kurttila, Pesonen, Kangas, and Kajanus introduced the technique in 2000, motivated by the fact that classic SWOT lists strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats without saying which matter most. By treating the four SWOT groups and the factors within them as an AHP hierarchy and eliciting pairwise comparisons on Saaty's 1-9 scale, the method derives numerical priority weights for every SWOT factor. The result is a SWOT analysis whose factors are ranked and commensurable, so strategists can see not just what the relevant factors are but how important each one is relative to the others.	Porter's five forces framework explains the underlying profitability of an industry through five competitive forces that together determine how much of the value an industry creates is captured by its firms rather than competed or bargained away. Introduced in Michael Porter's 1979 Harvard Business Review article and developed fully in his 1980 book Competitive Strategy, the framework identifies the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitute products, and the intensity of rivalry among existing competitors as the collective forces that set an industry's profit potential. The stronger these forces, the more pressure on margins and the less attractive the industry; the weaker they are, the more room firms have to earn superior returns. Five forces analysis assesses each force to judge industry attractiveness and, crucially, to find a position where a firm can defend itself against the forces or shift them in its favor.