Lightbridge Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Lightbridge Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Lightbridge Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company 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 helps the managers of the Lightbridge Corporation 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 utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Lightbridge Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Lightbridge Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Lightbridge Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Lightbridge Corporation 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 Lightbridge Corporation are –

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• Superb Performance in New Markets – Lightbridge Corporation 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 Lightbridge Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Lightbridge Corporation 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.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Lightbridge Corporation 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.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Lightbridge Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Lightbridge Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.

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Weakness of Lightbridge Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Lightbridge Corporation 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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• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Lightbridge Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Lightbridge 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 Lightbridge Corporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Lightbridge Corporation are below the industry average.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Lightbridge Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.

Opportunities for Lightbridge Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Lightbridge 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 Lightbridge Corporation in other product categories.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Lightbridge 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.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Lightbridge Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• 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 Lightbridge Corporation. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Lightbridge Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Lightbridge Corporation to increase its profitability.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Lightbridge Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.

Threats Lightbridge Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Lightbridge Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Lightbridge 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Lightbridge Corporation   in those markets.
• 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 Lightbridge Corporation
• 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 Lightbridge 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 Lightbridge 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 Lightbridge 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 Lightbridge 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 Lightbridge 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)