Initially we do not talk about Strengths and Weaknesses – everything is relative. Therefore the first column lists the capabilities and resources that are required for success. The importance column indicates the importance of each capability / resource – the sum of this column must equal 100% For example, in the table below “Customer Relationships” are considered so important to success that they are allocated 30% of the entire capability / resource score.

We then score ourselves, out of 10, on each capability. This score is multiplied by the Importance score for the capability (expressed as a decimal (ie 30% is the same as .3) to obtain our Weighted Score.

The great strength of this approach is that it not only provides us with our relative strength against competitor, it also emphasises which capabilities are most important. In the example below, we are stronger on 2 out of 3 strengths than our competitor; however, so important are customer relationships that our overall score is lower. Thus we can see where we need to invest if we are to compete successfully.