Green Plains SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Green Plains is one of the leading firms in its industry. Green Plains maintains its prominent 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 organization 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 Green Plains 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 primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Green Plains strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Green Plains SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Green Plains – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Green Plains 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 Green Plains are –

Superb Performance in New Markets – Green Plains 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.
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.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Green Plains is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Green Plains has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Green Plains just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Green Plains has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Green Plains 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.

Weakness of Green Plains – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Green Plains 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.

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 Green Plains
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 Green Plains is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
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. Green Plains has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Green Plains 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Green Plains are below the industry average.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Green Plains 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 Green Plains – 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 Green Plains to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Green Plains’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 market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Green Plains to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Green Plains 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 Green Plains to capture new customers and increase its market share.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Green Plains to increase its profitability.
New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for Green Plains. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
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.

Threats Green Plains Facing - External Strategic Factors

New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Green Plains may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Green Plains
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Green Plains profitability.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Green Plains

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 Green Plains
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 Green Plains

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 Green Plains 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 Green Plains

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

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)