PBF Energy SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by PBF Energy managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is an important technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) PBF Energy is facing in its current business environment.

The PBF Energy is one of the leading firms in its industry. PBF 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the PBF 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect PBF Energy strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to PBF Energy SWOT Analysis

Strengths of PBF Energy – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, PBF 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 PBF Energy are –

Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Strong distribution network – Over the years PBF Energy has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – PBF Energy is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Superb Performance in New Markets – PBF 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.
Strong Free Cash Flow – PBF Energy has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to PBF Energy products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of PBF Energy – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where PBF 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.

Limited success outside core business – Even though PBF Energy is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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.
Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of PBF Energy
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.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though PBF Energy is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. PBF Energy has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though PBF Energy is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for PBF Energy – External Strategic Factors

New environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for PBF Energy to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The new technology provides an opportunity to PBF Energy to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for PBF Energy to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of PBF Energy products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of PBF 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.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of PBF Energy.
Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the PBF Energy . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats PBF Energy Facing - External Strategic Factors

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.
Liability laws in different countries are different and PBF Energy may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
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.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for PBF Energy in those markets.
The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the PBF Energy profitability.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for PBF 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 PBF 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 PBF 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 PBF 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 PBF 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.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

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SWOT Worksheet & Template

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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)