SWOT-AHP Hybrid Analysis

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.