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Bill Barrett Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Bill Barrett Corporation managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is an important technique to evalauate the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Bill Barrett Corporation is facing in its current business environment.
The Bill Barrett Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Bill Barrett Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by critically 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.
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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates 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 Bill Barrett Corporation 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 main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Bill Barrett Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Bill Barrett Corporation SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Bill Barrett Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, Bill Barrett Corporation 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 Bill Barrett Corporation are –
Read - Bill Barrett Corporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Bill Barrett Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Strong distribution network – Over the years Bill Barrett Corporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Bill Barrett Corporation 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 developing new products – product innovation.
- 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 Free Cash Flow – Bill Barrett Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- 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.
Weakness of Bill Barrett Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Bill Barrett Corporation 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.
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- 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.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Bill Barrett Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Bill Barrett Corporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
- 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. Bill Barrett Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Bill Barrett Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Bill Barrett Corporation 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.
Opportunities for Bill Barrett Corporation – External Strategic Factors
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- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Bill Barrett Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Bill Barrett Corporation.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Bill Barrett Corporation 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 Bill Barrett Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Bill Barrett Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- 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 Bill Barrett Corporation in other product categories.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Bill Barrett Corporation’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 environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for Bill Barrett Corporation to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Threats Bill Barrett Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Bill Barrett Corporation in those markets.
- 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 Bill Barrett Corporation’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.
- The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Bill Barrett Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Bill Barrett Corporation profitability.
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Bill Barrett Corporation
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 Bill Barrett Corporation
- 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 Bill Barrett Corporation
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 Bill Barrett Corporation 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 Bill Barrett Corporation
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
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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)
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