Gale Pacific Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Gale Pacific Limited is one of the leading companies in its industry. Gale Pacific Limited maintains its dominant 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 firm 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Gale Pacific 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Gale Pacific Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Gale Pacific Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Gale Pacific Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Gale Pacific Limited 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 Gale Pacific Limited are –

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• Strong Free Cash Flow – Gale Pacific Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• 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.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Gale Pacific Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• 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. Gale Pacific 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Gale Pacific Limited 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 Gale Pacific Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Gale Pacific 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 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.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Gale Pacific Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Gale Pacific Limited 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 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. Gale Pacific Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• 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 Gale Pacific Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Gale Pacific Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for Gale Pacific Limited – External Strategic Factors

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• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Gale Pacific Limited.
• 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 Gale Pacific Limited in other product categories.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Gale Pacific Limited 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 Gale Pacific 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.
• 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 Gale Pacific Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Gale Pacific Limited to increase its profitability.
• 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 Gale Pacific 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 Gale Pacific Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats Gale Pacific 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 Gale Pacific Limited   in those markets.
• 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.
• 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 Gale Pacific Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Gale Pacific Limited profitability.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Gale Pacific Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies 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 Gale Pacific Limited

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Gale Pacific 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 Gale Pacific 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 Gale Pacific 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 Gale Pacific 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 Gale Pacific 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)