Order custom Harvard Business Case Study Analysis & Solution. Starting just $19
Fern Fort University
Devon Energy SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Devon Energy managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a useful technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Devon Energy is facing in its current business environment.
The Devon Energy is one of the leading companies in its industry. Devon Energy maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
The SWOT Analysis framework helps an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also known as SWOT Matrix.
The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Devon Energy to develop four types of strategies:
- SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
- WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
- ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
- WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies
SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective
The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Devon Energy strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Devon Energy SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Devon Energy – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, Devon Energy has numerous strengths that enable it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Devon Energy are –
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Devon Energy is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
- Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
- Superb Performance in New Markets – Devon Energy has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Devon Energy products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
Weakness of Devon Energy – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Devon Energy can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.
- Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
- The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
- Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
- Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that Devon Energy is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Devon Energy is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Devon Energy are below the industry average.
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Devon Energy has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
Opportunities for Devon Energy – External Strategic Factors
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Devon Energy to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for Devon Energy in other product categories.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Devon Energy to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Devon Energy.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Devon Energy products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Devon Energy an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Devon Energy to increase its profitability.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Devon Energy’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
Threats Devon Energy Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Devon Energy profitability.
- No regular supply of innovative products – Over the years the company has developed numerous products but those are often response to the development by other players. Secondly the supply of new products is not regular thus leading to high and low swings in the sales number over period of time.
- Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Devon Energy may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Devon Energy’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
- As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Devon Energy
Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.
- Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
- SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
- The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Devon Energy
- SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
- SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Devon Energy
In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.
This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Devon Energy managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.
Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Devon Energy
This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.
Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Devon Energy
Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis
You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.
SWOT Worksheet & Template
If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.
References / Citations & Bibliography
- M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
- A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
- O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
- L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
- R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)
Order Now
Previous 5 SWOT Analysis
- Land o Lakes SWOT Analysis
- HollyFrontier SWOT Analysis
- Viacom SWOT Analysis
- Synnex SWOT Analysis
- Illinois Tool Works SWOT Analysis