Alicanto Minerals Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Alicanto Minerals Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Alicanto Minerals 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Alicanto Minerals 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 use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Alicanto Minerals Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Alicanto Minerals Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Alicanto Minerals Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals Limited are –

Read - Alicanto Minerals Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Alicanto Minerals 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.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• 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 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.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Alicanto Minerals Limited 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.

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Weakness of Alicanto Minerals Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Alicanto Minerals Limited 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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• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• 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 Alicanto Minerals Limited
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Alicanto Minerals 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. Alicanto Minerals Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Alicanto Minerals Limited is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• 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.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals Limited – External Strategic Factors

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• The new technology provides an opportunity to Alicanto Minerals Limited to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Alicanto Minerals Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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 Alicanto Minerals 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.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Alicanto Minerals Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Alicanto Minerals Limited to increase its profitability.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Alicanto Minerals Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Alicanto Minerals Limited.
• 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 Alicanto Minerals Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Alicanto Minerals Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Alicanto Minerals Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• 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.
• 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Alicanto Minerals Limited   in those markets.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Alicanto Minerals Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals 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 Alicanto Minerals 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

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)