CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS & PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE 2022 · Vol. 2022, Issue 1

Towards SWOT analysis as a strategic tool to develop economic sustainable construction business

Iruka Chijindu Anugwo

Keywords: Construction contractors, critical factors, sustainable business, swot analysis

Abstract

In the area of strategic business management, the application of SWOT analysis as a business tool is considered a classical approach but effective, it has continued to gain more traction in terms of analysing and determining critical internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and threats of any given organisations. The incessant and premature business failures across various sectors (especially the construction sector). The causes of premature business failure would be linked to the inability of start-ups or existing organisations to strategically undertake internal and external business analyses that would assist them to identify business attributes of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in their business’ operating environment. This paper was an attempt to assess and determine the synergistic effect and impact of conscious application of SWOT analysis to develop, grow and maintain economic sustainable business within the construction industry. This study utilised a systematic examination of relevant literature between the years 2002 to 2022 on the subject of SWOT analysis as a business tool to determine the critical factors for growing sustainable construction business. The search and analysis of the study include published 23 academic articles out of 65 articles initially extracted from Google scholar. The study findings indicated through SWOT analysis as a business planning tool 13 factors (strengths), 11 factors (weaknesses), 6 factors (opportunities), and 10 factors (threats) were considered critical factors and business attributes for growing a sustainable business within the construction industry. Thus, conscious application of SWOT analysis among start-up and existing contractors in the construction industry would potentially minimise the incessant and premature business failure in the construction sector.