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W.R. Grace SWOT Analysis / Matrix
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SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by W.R. Grace managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a useful technique to analyze the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) W.R. Grace is facing in its current business environment.
The W.R. Grace is one of the leading companies in its industry. W.R. Grace maintains its dominant position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly 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 facilitates 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 helps the managers of the W.R. Grace 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 company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect W.R. Grace strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to W.R. Grace SWOT Analysis
Strengths of W.R. Grace – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading companies in its industry, W.R. Grace has numerous strengths that help 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 W.R. Grace are –
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – W.R. Grace is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – W.R. Grace 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.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. W.R. Grace is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years W.R. Grace has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of W.R. Grace just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.
- 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 W.R. Grace – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where W.R. Grace can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of W.R. Grace are below the industry average.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though W.R. Grace is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though W.R. Grace is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, W.R. Grace needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry W.R. Grace has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
- 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 W.R. Grace
Opportunities for W.R. Grace – 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 W.R. Grace to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided W.R. Grace an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to W.R. Grace 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.
- 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 W.R. Grace in other product categories.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the W.R. Grace . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of W.R. Grace’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.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as W.R. Grace to increase its profitability.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable W.R. Grace to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Threats W.R. Grace Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for W.R. Grace in those markets.
- Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
- 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.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of W.R. Grace
- Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to W.R. Grace’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for W.R. Grace
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 W.R. Grace
- 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 W.R. Grace
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 W.R. Grace 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 W.R. Grace
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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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)
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