Order custom Harvard Business Case Study Analysis & Solution. Starting just $19
Fern Fort University
Oconee Federal Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Oconee Federal Financial Corp. managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a handy technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Oconee Federal Financial Corp. is facing in its current business environment.
The Oconee Federal Financial Corp. is one of the leading firms in its industry. Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
Order Now - Oconee Federal Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis
Check out- Oconee Federal Financial Corp. PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
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 helps the managers of the Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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 firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Oconee Federal Financial Corp. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Oconee Federal Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Oconee Federal Financial Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading companies in its industry, Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp. are –
Read - Oconee Federal Financial Corp. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
- 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.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Oconee Federal Financial Corp. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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.
- Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
- Superb Performance in New Markets – Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Oconee Federal Financial Corp. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Oconee Federal Financial Corp. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Weakness of Oconee Federal Financial Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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.
Article continues after advertisement
- 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.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Oconee Federal Financial Corp. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- 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.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Oconee Federal Financial Corp. are below the industry average.
- 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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
- 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. Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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.
Opportunities for Oconee Federal Financial Corp. – External Strategic Factors
Article continues after advertisement
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Oconee Federal Financial Corp. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Oconee Federal Financial Corp. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Oconee Federal Financial Corp..
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Oconee Federal Financial Corp.’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.
- 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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp. in other product categories.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Oconee Federal Financial Corp. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Oconee Federal Financial Corp. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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.
Threats Oconee Federal Financial Corp. Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Oconee Federal Financial Corp. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
- 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 raw material can pose a threat to the Oconee Federal Financial Corp. profitability.
- 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.
- 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.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
- 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.
Article continues after advertisement
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp. 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 Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
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.
Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oconee Federal Financial Corp.
Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis
You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.
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)
Order Now
Previous 5 SWOT Analysis
- OceanFirst Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis
- New York Community Bancorp, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Northwest Bancshares, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- MSB Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis
- Malvern Bancorp, Inc. SWOT Analysis
Next 5 SWOT Analysis
- People's United Financial, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Pathfinder Bancorp, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Prudential Bancorp, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Poage Bankshares, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Provident Financial Services, Inc. SWOT Analysis
HBR Case Studies Solutions
- Subhiksha: Managing Store Operations case study solution
- Gazprom and Hermitage Capital: Shareholder Activism in Russia case study solution
- Ottawa Voyageurs case study solution
- Corruption in Russia: IKEA's Expansion to the East (B) case study solution
- Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent: The Three Kingdoms of the Chinese Internet case study solution