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CONSOL Energy Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by CONSOL Energy Inc. managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a useful technique to analyze the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) CONSOL Energy Inc. is facing in its current business environment.
The CONSOL Energy Inc. is one of the leading companies in its industry. CONSOL Energy Inc. maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
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The SWOT Analysis framework enables 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 helps the managers of the CONSOL Energy Inc. 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 an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect CONSOL Energy Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to CONSOL Energy Inc. SWOT Analysis
Strengths of CONSOL Energy Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, CONSOL Energy Inc. 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 CONSOL Energy Inc. are –
Read - CONSOL Energy Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. CONSOL Energy Inc. 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.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – CONSOL Energy Inc. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to CONSOL Energy Inc. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years CONSOL Energy Inc. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of CONSOL Energy Inc. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- 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.
- Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – CONSOL Energy Inc. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Weakness of CONSOL Energy Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where CONSOL Energy Inc. 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.
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- Limited success outside core business – Even though CONSOL Energy Inc. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- 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 CONSOL Energy Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
- 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 CONSOL Energy Inc.
- 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. CONSOL Energy Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of CONSOL Energy Inc. are below the industry average.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though CONSOL Energy Inc. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Opportunities for CONSOL Energy Inc. – External Strategic Factors
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- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable CONSOL Energy Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- 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 CONSOL Energy Inc. in other product categories.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to CONSOL Energy Inc. 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.
- 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 CONSOL Energy Inc. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for CONSOL Energy Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of CONSOL Energy Inc.’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.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided CONSOL Energy Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Threats CONSOL Energy Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Liability laws in different countries are different and CONSOL Energy Inc. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards 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 CONSOL Energy Inc.
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the CONSOL Energy Inc. profitability.
- 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 CONSOL Energy Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- 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.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for CONSOL Energy Inc.
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 CONSOL Energy Inc.
- 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.
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Weighted SWOT Analysis of CONSOL Energy Inc.
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 CONSOL Energy Inc. 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 CONSOL Energy Inc.
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)
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