Atrum Coal Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Atrum Coal Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Atrum Coal Limited maintains its dominant 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Atrum Coal Limited to develop four types of strategies:

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

Atrum Coal Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Atrum Coal Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Atrum Coal Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Atrum Coal Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

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

Read - Atrum Coal Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Atrum Coal Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Atrum Coal 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 Atrum Coal Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Atrum Coal 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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Atrum Coal 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 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.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Atrum Coal Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.

Weakness of Atrum Coal Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Atrum Coal 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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The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Atrum Coal Limited are below the industry average.
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.
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.
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.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Atrum Coal Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
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 Atrum Coal Limited
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Atrum Coal Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for Atrum Coal 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 Atrum Coal Limited.
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 Atrum Coal Limited in other product categories.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Atrum Coal Limited to increase its profitability.
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 Atrum Coal 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.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Atrum Coal Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Atrum Coal 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.
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.
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 Atrum Coal Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Atrum Coal Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Atrum Coal Limited in those markets.
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.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Atrum Coal Limited
Liability laws in different countries are different and Atrum Coal Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Atrum Coal 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 Atrum Coal 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 Atrum Coal 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 Atrum Coal 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 Atrum Coal 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)