SWOT analysis is an important tool that both students and managers use to understand capabilities. Its applicability is wide. This article, in the form of a real-world classroom discussion, describes the various facets of management techniques such as SWOT analysis, the BCG Matrix, and the GE/McKinsey Matrix, among others. The protagonist of the article, Raman, observes how a class of management students develop their analytical skills based on these techniques. He notices that a number of subjective factors appear to influence the group, coloring their perspective and clouding their judgment. As a result, even though the group did a greater degree of systematic work with a SWOT framework of presentation, the diagnostic analysis was not accurate and the solutions suggested did not appear to be scientific enough. The article suggests alternative frameworks.

Raman is a well-known and successful professor in one of the famous management schools abroad. He is visiting different B-Schools in India and taking sessions on various management topics. During the current series of lectures, he is covering business strategy. Today, he is visiting a B-School in Hyderabad as a part of his sabbatical from his college.Raman made a tentative beginning, in the post-lunch session, with the usual opening question, "I hope all of you have gone through the case study material I had left with you last week and that you are ready to make the presentation?" Few hands went up, dispiritedly and diffidently, in a class of thirty MBA students. He was close to despair.