Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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) Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. is facing in its current business environment.

The Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. maintains its dominant 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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 main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. are –

Read - Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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.
• 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.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.

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Weakness of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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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• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. are below the industry average.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• 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. Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. – External Strategic Factors

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• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.’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 technology provides an opportunity to Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.

Threats Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. profitability.
• 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.
• 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.   in those markets.
• 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.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.

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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.
• 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.

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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 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 Energy Transfer Partners, L.P.

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)