Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a useful technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. is facing in its current business environment.

The Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. is one of the leading firms in its industry. Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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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 enables the managers of the Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. 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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. are –

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Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. 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.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. 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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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. Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.
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.

Opportunities for Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. – External Strategic Factors

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Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A..
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A.’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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. to increase its profitability.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
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 environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. 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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. Facing - External Strategic Factors

Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
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.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. profitability.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
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.
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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A.

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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A.
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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A.

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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. 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 Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A.

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)