Order custom Harvard Business Case Study Analysis & Solution. Starting just $19
Fern Fort University
Company Name SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Company Name managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is an important technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Company Name is facing in its current business environment.
The Company Name is one of the leading companies in its industry. Company Name maintains its dominant position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
Order Now - Company Name SWOT Analysis
Check out- Company Name 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 called SWOT Matrix.
The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Company Name 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 a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Company Name strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Company Name SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Company Name – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Company Name 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 Company Name are –
Read - Company Name Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Company Name has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Strong distribution network – Over the years Company Name has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- 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.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Company Name is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Company Name 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Company Name has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Company Name just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Weakness of Company Name – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Company Name 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.
Article continues after advertisement
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Company Name are below the industry average.
- 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. Company Name has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Company Name is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- 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 Company Name 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.
- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Company Name 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 Company Name – External Strategic Factors
Article continues after advertisement
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Company Name to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Company Name to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Company Name . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- 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 Company Name to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Company Name an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- 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 Company Name in other product categories.
- 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.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Company Name products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Threats Company Name Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
- 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.
- The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- 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 technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
- 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.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Company Name
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 Company Name
- 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 Company Name
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 Company Name 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 Company Name
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 Company Name
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)
Order Now
Previous 5 SWOT Analysis
- Yowie Group Ltd SWOT Analysis
- Wingara Ag Ltd SWOT Analysis
- Wellard Limited SWOT Analysis
- Webster Limited SWOT Analysis
- Wattle Health Australia Limited SWOT Analysis
Next 5 SWOT Analysis
- 1300 Smiles Limited SWOT Analysis
- 1St Group Limited SWOT Analysis
- Adherium Limited SWOT Analysis
- Admedus Ltd SWOT Analysis
- Airxpanders, Inc. SWOT Analysis
HBR Case Studies Solutions
- IBM's Diversity Strategy: Bridging the Workplace and the Marketplace case study solution
- Massachusetts General Hospital: CABG Surgery (B) case study solution
- Asda (C) case study solution
- Resuming Internationalization at Starbucks case study solution
- Who Killed Bhavani Manjula?--A Story of Microfinance in Andhra Pradesh (B) case study solution