A.H. Belo Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by A.H. Belo Corporation managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a handy technique to evalauate the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) A.H. Belo Corporation is facing in its current business environment.

The A.H. Belo Corporation is one of the leading firms in its industry. A.H. Belo Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by critically 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the A.H. Belo Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

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

A.H. Belo Corporation swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect A.H. Belo Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to A.H. Belo Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of A.H. Belo Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, A.H. Belo Corporation 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 A.H. Belo Corporation are –

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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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years A.H. Belo Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of A.H. Belo Corporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to A.H. Belo Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong distribution network – Over the years A.H. Belo Corporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
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.
Strong Free Cash Flow – A.H. Belo Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – A.H. Belo Corporation 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.

Weakness of A.H. Belo Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where A.H. Belo Corporation 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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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.
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.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, A.H. Belo Corporation 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.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though A.H. Belo Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of A.H. Belo Corporation are below the industry average.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though A.H. Belo Corporation 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.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry A.H. Belo Corporation 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 A.H. Belo Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable A.H. Belo Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
The new technology provides an opportunity to A.H. Belo Corporation 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.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of A.H. Belo Corporation 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 A.H. Belo Corporation’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.
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 A.H. Belo Corporation in other product categories.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided A.H. Belo Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the A.H. Belo Corporation . 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 A.H. Belo Corporation to increase its profitability.

Threats A.H. Belo Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising raw material can pose a threat to the A.H. Belo Corporation 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.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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.
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.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for A.H. Belo Corporation

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 A.H. Belo Corporation
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 A.H. Belo Corporation

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 A.H. Belo Corporation 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 A.H. Belo Corporation

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)