Alloy Resources Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Alloy Resources Limited is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Alloy Resources 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.

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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 Alloy Resources Limited to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Alloy Resources Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Alloy Resources Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Alloy Resources Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Alloy Resources Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources Limited are –

Read - Alloy Resources Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Alloy Resources Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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.
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 distribution network – Over the years Alloy Resources Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Alloy Resources 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.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Alloy Resources Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
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.

Weakness of Alloy Resources Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Alloy Resources 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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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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Alloy Resources 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.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Alloy Resources Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Alloy Resources Limited are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Alloy Resources Limited – External Strategic Factors

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Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Alloy Resources 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.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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 new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Alloy Resources Limited to increase its profitability.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Alloy Resources Limited 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 Alloy Resources Limited in other product categories.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Alloy Resources Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.

Threats Alloy Resources Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Alloy Resources Limited
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Alloy Resources Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
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 Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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 Alloy Resources 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)