Duke Energy Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Duke Energy Corporation is one of the leading companies in its industry. Duke Energy Corporation maintains its dominant 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 enables the managers of the Duke Energy Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

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

Duke Energy Corporation swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Duke Energy Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Duke Energy Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Duke Energy Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Duke Energy 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 Duke Energy Corporation are –

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Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Duke Energy 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.
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 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.
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.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Duke Energy Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Duke Energy Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of Duke Energy Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Duke Energy 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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Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Duke Energy 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.
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.
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 Duke Energy Corporation is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Duke Energy Corporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Duke Energy Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Duke Energy 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.

Opportunities for Duke Energy Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Duke Energy Corporation to increase its profitability.
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.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Duke Energy 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.
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 Duke Energy Corporation to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
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 Duke Energy Corporation in other product categories.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Duke Energy Corporation . 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 Duke Energy Corporation to capture new customers and increase its market share.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Duke Energy Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.

Threats Duke Energy Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
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.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Duke Energy Corporation profitability.
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.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Duke Energy 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 Duke Energy 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 Duke Energy 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 Duke Energy 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 Duke Energy 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

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

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)