Alumina Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Alumina Limited is one of the leading companies in its industry. Alumina Limited maintains its prominent 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 firm 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Alumina 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Alumina Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Alumina Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Alumina Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Alumina Limited 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 Alumina Limited are –

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• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Alumina Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Alumina Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Alumina 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.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Alumina Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Alumina Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Alumina Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.

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Weakness of Alumina Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Alumina 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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• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Alumina 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.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Alumina Limited 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Alumina Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• 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. Alumina Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• 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.

Opportunities for Alumina Limited – External Strategic Factors

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• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Alumina Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Alumina Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Alumina 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.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Alumina Limited to increase its profitability.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Alumina Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• 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 Alumina Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Alumina 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.

Threats Alumina 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 Alumina Limited
• 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 company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• 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.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Alumina Limited profitability.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Alumina Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Alumina 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 Alumina 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 Alumina 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 Alumina 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 Alumina 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)