Yancoal Australia Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Yancoal Australia Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Yancoal Australia Limited 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 firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


Order Now - Yancoal Australia Limited SWOT Analysis
Check out- Yancoal Australia Limited PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement


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 Yancoal Australia Limited to develop four types of strategies:

  • SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
  • WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
  • ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
  •  WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies
Yancoal Australia Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Yancoal Australia Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Yancoal Australia Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Yancoal Australia Limited – Internal Strategic Factors


As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Yancoal Australia 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 Yancoal Australia Limited are –


Read - Yancoal Australia Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement


  • 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. Yancoal Australia 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.
  • 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 distribution network – Over the years Yancoal Australia Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
  • Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
  • 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.
  • Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Yancoal Australia Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
  • Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Yancoal Australia Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Yancoal Australia Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.


Weakness of Yancoal Australia Limited – Internal Strategic Factors


Weakness are the areas where Yancoal Australia Limited 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.


Article continues after advertisement

  • 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.
  • 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. Yancoal Australia Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
  • High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Yancoal Australia Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
  • Limited success outside core business – Even though Yancoal Australia Limited is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
  • 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 Yancoal Australia Limited
  • 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 Yancoal Australia Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.

Opportunities for Yancoal Australia Limited – External Strategic Factors


Article continues after advertisement

  • Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Yancoal Australia Limited.
  • The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Yancoal Australia Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
  • 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.
  • The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Yancoal Australia Limited to increase its profitability.
  • Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Yancoal Australia Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
  • New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Yancoal Australia Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
  • Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Yancoal Australia Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
  • 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 Yancoal Australia 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.

Threats Yancoal Australia Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

  • 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.
  • Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Yancoal Australia Limited
  • Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Yancoal Australia Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income 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.
  • Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Yancoal Australia Limited profitability.
  • Liability laws in different countries are different and Yancoal Australia 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.
  • Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Yancoal Australia Limited   in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Yancoal Australia 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 Yancoal Australia 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Yancoal Australia 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 Yancoal Australia 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 Yancoal Australia 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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Yancoal Australia Limited

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)