Argent Minerals Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Argent Minerals Limited is one of the leading companies in its industry. Argent Minerals Limited maintains its dominant 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 firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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The SWOT Analysis framework helps 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 Argent Minerals Limited to develop four types of strategies:

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

Argent Minerals Limited swot analysis / matrix

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 Argent Minerals Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Argent Minerals Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Argent Minerals Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

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

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Strong Free Cash Flow – Argent Minerals Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Argent Minerals Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Argent Minerals Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Argent Minerals 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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Argent 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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Argent 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.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.

Weakness of Argent Minerals Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Argent Minerals 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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Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Argent Minerals Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Argent 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.
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.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Argent 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.

Opportunities for Argent Minerals Limited – External Strategic Factors

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Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Argent Minerals Limited.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Argent Minerals 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.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Argent Minerals Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Argent 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.
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 Argent Minerals Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
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 Argent Minerals Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Argent Minerals Limited to increase its profitability.

Threats Argent Minerals Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

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 Argent Minerals Limited in those markets.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Argent Minerals Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
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.
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.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
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.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Argent Minerals Limited profitability.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Argent 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 Argent 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 Argent 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 Argent 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 Argent 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)