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American Midstream Partners, LP SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by American Midstream Partners, LP managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is a useful technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) American Midstream Partners, LP is facing in its current business environment.
The American Midstream Partners, LP is one of the leading firms in its industry. American Midstream Partners, LP maintains its dominant 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 helps 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 American Midstream Partners, LP 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect American Midstream Partners, LP strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to American Midstream Partners, LP SWOT Analysis
Strengths of American Midstream Partners, LP – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading companies in its industry, American Midstream Partners, LP 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 American Midstream Partners, LP are –
Read - American Midstream Partners, LP Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to American Midstream Partners, LP products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – American Midstream Partners, LP has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Strong distribution network – Over the years American Midstream Partners, LP has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Superb Performance in New Markets – American Midstream Partners, LP 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.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years American Midstream Partners, LP has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of American Midstream Partners, LP just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- 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.
Weakness of American Midstream Partners, LP – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where American Midstream Partners, LP 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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- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though American Midstream Partners, LP is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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. American Midstream Partners, LP has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though American Midstream Partners, LP 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of American Midstream Partners, LP are below the industry average.
- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, American Midstream Partners, LP 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.
- Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
- 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 American Midstream Partners, LP – 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 American Midstream Partners, LP.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the American Midstream Partners, LP . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for American Midstream Partners, LP to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to American Midstream Partners, LP 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.
- 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 American Midstream Partners, LP to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- 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 American Midstream Partners, LP 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 American Midstream Partners, LP. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
Threats American Midstream Partners, LP Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to American Midstream Partners, LP’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- 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.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and American Midstream Partners, LP may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- 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.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for American Midstream Partners, LP in those markets.
- 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 American Midstream Partners, LP
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 American Midstream Partners, LP
- 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 American Midstream Partners, LP
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 American Midstream Partners, LP 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 American Midstream Partners, LP
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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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)
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