These two matrices are parts of SWOT strategic planning tools, in which they assess the external environment where a company competes, identify key issues that may affect its profitability in both macro- and micro-environment levels. Modern companies set up marketing intelligence systems to collect essential information about opportunities and threats: on the one hand, opportunities imply profit potentials such as offering under-supplied product/service, improvement of existing offerings, and initiatives of new product/service; On the other hand, threats mean possible profitability decreases due to environment change and competitors challenges. Opportunity and threat matrices have similar structure: both evaluate probability of an event (e.g., an opportunity’s success probability, or a threat’s probability of occurrence) as well as the impact of such an event (e.g., attractiveness of an opportunity, or seriousness of a threat).
These two matrices are useful in providing holistic assessments of the external environment. For instance, a business school in Taiwan may find the best marketing opportunity in developing online degree program to increase intake, and the greatest threat of competition from business schools of nearby countries (e.g., Hong Kong and Singapore), after considering probability and impact of different events, listed as follow:
| Probability | Impact | Rank | |
| Opportunities | |||
| develop online MBA degree program | High | High | 1 |
| hire new faculty members who have won Nobel prizes | Low | High | 2 |
| develop dual degree programs (e.g., L.L.M-MBA) | Low | Low | 3 |
| Threats | |||
| business schools of nearby countries offer scholarships to attract top students | High | High | 1 |
| tighter border control measures that limit the exchange of faculty and students | High | Low | 2 |
| declining birth rate means less new applicants | Low | Low | 3 |