Oztrade Publishing Group Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Oztrade Publishing Group Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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 primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Oztrade Publishing Group Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Oztrade Publishing Group Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Oztrade Publishing Group Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited are –

Read - Oztrade Publishing Group Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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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.
• 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 Free Cash Flow – Oztrade Publishing Group Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• 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 skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Oztrade Publishing Group Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Oztrade Publishing Group Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

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Weakness of Oztrade Publishing Group Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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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• 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. Oztrade Publishing Group Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Oztrade Publishing Group Limited are below the industry average.
• 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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.
• Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of Oztrade Publishing Group Limited
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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, Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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.

Opportunities for Oztrade Publishing Group Limited – 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited to increase its profitability.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Oztrade Publishing Group Limited.
• 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Oztrade Publishing Group Limited . 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited to capture new customers and increase its 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited’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.

Threats Oztrade Publishing Group Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Oztrade Publishing Group Limited   in those markets.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• 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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Oztrade Publishing Group Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• 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.
• 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.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Oztrade Publishing Group Limited

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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited
• 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited

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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited 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 Oztrade Publishing Group Limited

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)