ICON Public Limited Company SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by ICON Public Limited Company 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) ICON Public Limited Company is facing in its current business environment.

The ICON Public Limited Company is one of the leading firms in its industry. ICON Public Limited Company 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 firm 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 enables the managers of the ICON Public Limited Company to develop four types of strategies:

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

ICON Public Limited Company swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect ICON Public Limited Company strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to ICON Public Limited Company SWOT Analysis

Strengths of ICON Public Limited Company – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, ICON Public Limited Company 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 ICON Public Limited Company are –

Read - ICON Public Limited Company Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. ICON Public Limited Company 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.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – ICON Public Limited Company is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years ICON Public Limited Company has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
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 ICON Public Limited Company – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where ICON Public Limited Company 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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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.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though ICON Public Limited Company 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.
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. ICON Public Limited Company has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though ICON Public Limited Company is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry ICON Public Limited Company 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.

Opportunities for ICON Public Limited Company – External Strategic Factors

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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 ICON Public Limited Company to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
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 ICON Public Limited Company. 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 taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as ICON Public Limited Company to increase its profitability.
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 ICON Public Limited Company in other product categories.
The new technology provides an opportunity to ICON Public Limited Company 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 ICON Public Limited Company to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of ICON Public Limited Company products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of ICON Public Limited Company’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.

Threats ICON Public Limited Company Facing - External Strategic Factors

Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the ICON Public Limited Company profitability.
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.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of ICON Public Limited Company
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for ICON Public Limited Company in those markets.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for ICON Public Limited Company

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 ICON Public Limited Company
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 ICON Public Limited Company

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 ICON Public Limited Company 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 ICON Public Limited Company

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

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)