When conducting a SWOT analysis for a textbook publisher, which step can be excluded?

In a SWOT analysis, the primary focus is on identifying and analyzing the internal strengths and weaknesses of a company as well as the external opportunities and threats it faces. Each of the steps mentioned in the options plays a role in this comprehensive evaluation.

While identifying market opportunities, matching strategies to resources, and drawing conclusions about the overall business situation are all integral components of assessing how a textbook publisher can leverage its strengths and address its weaknesses in the context of the market, benchmarking against key success factors is not a required step in the SWOT analysis process itself. It can serve as a supplemental exercise, but it does not directly relate to synthesizing the internal and external factors that are central to a SWOT analysis.

Thus, excluding benchmarking against key success factors is reasonable, as it may provide insights that complement a SWOT analysis but does not fundamentally alter the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that is the hallmark of the method.