Ensurance Ltd SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Ensurance Ltd 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) Ensurance Ltd is facing in its current business environment.

The Ensurance Ltd is one of the leading firms in its industry. Ensurance Ltd maintains its prominent 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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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 enables the managers of the Ensurance Ltd 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 firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Ensurance Ltd strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Ensurance Ltd SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Ensurance Ltd – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Ensurance Ltd 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 Ensurance Ltd are –

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• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Ensurance Ltd 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.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Ensurance Ltd has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Ensurance Ltd has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• 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. Ensurance Ltd 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.

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Weakness of Ensurance Ltd – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Ensurance Ltd 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, Ensurance Ltd 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.
• 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 Ensurance Ltd is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Ensurance Ltd is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Ensurance Ltd are below the industry average.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Ensurance Ltd is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• 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.
• 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. Ensurance Ltd has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.

Opportunities for Ensurance Ltd – External Strategic Factors

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• 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 Ensurance Ltd 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.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Ensurance Ltd 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 Ensurance Ltd to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Ensurance Ltd an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Ensurance Ltd’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 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 Ensurance Ltd. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Ensurance Ltd to increase its profitability.

Threats Ensurance Ltd Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• 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.
• 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.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Ensurance Ltd’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Ensurance Ltd

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Ensurance Ltd

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 Ensurance Ltd
• 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 Ensurance Ltd

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 Ensurance Ltd 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 Ensurance Ltd

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)