Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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 company 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. to develop four types of strategies:

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

Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. swot analysis / matrix

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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Acadia Healthcare Company, 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. are –

Read - Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
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.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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. Acadia Healthcare Company, 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 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.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.

Weakness of Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. are below the industry average.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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.
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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. – External Strategic Factors

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The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Acadia Healthcare Company, 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.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
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 Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. in other product categories.

Threats Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. 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.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. in those markets.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. profitability.
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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Acadia Healthcare Company, 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, 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 Acadia Healthcare Company, 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

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)