SWOT analysis of Smart City plans

Test your Smart City Plan online!

The SWOT tool developed by EURAC (European Academy of Bolzano), freely available online, is a self-assessment tool for city administrations to identify opportunities and barriers for the implementation of a Smart City project.

This web-based tool guides the user through a list of 40 simple questions - to be answered by “Yes”, “No” or “I don’t know”, no numerical data required- and provides a full analysis of a planned Smart City project by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strengths and weaknesses relate to factors that are internal to the project such as its participants or its financing, while opportunities and threats deal with the external environment of the project (macroeconomic matters, technological innovation rates, legislation, socio-cultural changes).

The outcome of the analysis takes the form of a matrix presenting the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats identified according to five topics:

ü  Technique and implementation

ü  behaviour

ü  economy and finance

ü  Legislation

ü  Policy and administration

This analysis will help the city planner understand whether the implementation of the smart city project might proceed rather smoothly or encounter difficulties. The user can then build up on how the identified drivers (strengths and opportunities) can be used to overcome the detected barriers (weaknesses and threats).

You can test freely your own Smart City Plan by signing in on http://sinfonia.eurac.edu/swot/ .