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Capital Product Partners L.P. SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Capital Product Partners L.P. 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) Capital Product Partners L.P. is facing in its current business environment.
The Capital Product Partners L.P. is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Capital Product Partners L.P. 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 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 Capital Product 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Capital Product Partners L.P. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Capital Product Partners L.P. SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Capital Product Partners L.P. – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, Capital Product 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 Capital Product Partners L.P. are –
Read - Capital Product Partners L.P. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Capital Product Partners L.P. 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 Capital Product Partners L.P. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Capital Product Partners L.P. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- 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.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Capital Product Partners L.P. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Capital Product Partners L.P. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- 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.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Weakness of Capital Product Partners L.P. – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Capital Product Partners L.P. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization 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.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Capital Product 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.
- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Capital Product 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.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Capital Product Partners L.P. 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 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.
- 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 Capital Product Partners L.P. – External Strategic Factors
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- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Capital Product Partners L.P. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Capital Product Partners L.P..
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Capital Product Partners L.P. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Capital Product Partners L.P. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Capital Product Partners L.P. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Capital Product Partners L.P. to increase its profitability.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Capital Product Partners L.P. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- 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 Capital Product Partners L.P. in other product categories.
Threats Capital Product Partners L.P. Facing - External Strategic Factors
- 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.
- 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.
- Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
- 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.
- 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 Capital Product Partners L.P. in those markets.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Capital Product Partners L.P.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Capital Product 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 Capital Product 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 Capital Product 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 Capital Product 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 Capital Product 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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SWOT Worksheet & Template
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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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