Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is a useful technique to evalauate the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP is facing in its current business environment.

The Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP is one of the leading companies in its industry. Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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 company 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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 a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP are –

Read - Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• 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.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• 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.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• 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.

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Weakness of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP are below the industry average.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.

Opportunities for Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP – External Strategic Factors

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• 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP in other product categories.
• 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.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP to increase its profitability.

Threats Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• 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.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income 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.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP

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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP
• 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP

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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP 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 Dominion Energy Midstream Partners, LP

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)