Almaden Minerals Ltd. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Almaden Minerals Ltd. is one of the leading companies in its industry. Almaden Minerals Ltd. maintains its dominant 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 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 helps the managers of the Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Almaden Minerals Ltd. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Almaden Minerals Ltd. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd. are –

Read - Almaden Minerals Ltd. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Superb Performance in New Markets – Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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 developing new products – product innovation.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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.
• 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.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Almaden Minerals Ltd. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Almaden Minerals Ltd. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Almaden Minerals Ltd. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.

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Weakness of Almaden Minerals Ltd. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Almaden Minerals Ltd. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company 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.
• 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 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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.
• 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. Almaden Minerals Ltd. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Almaden Minerals Ltd. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for Almaden Minerals Ltd. – 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd..
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Almaden Minerals Ltd. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Almaden Minerals Ltd. to increase its profitability.
• 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Almaden Minerals Ltd. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Almaden Minerals Ltd.’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 Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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.
• 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 environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• 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.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Almaden Minerals Ltd. profitability.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Almaden Minerals Ltd.   in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Almaden Minerals Ltd.

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 Almaden Minerals Ltd.
• 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd.

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 Almaden Minerals Ltd. 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 Almaden Minerals Ltd.

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)