VOC Energy Trust SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by VOC Energy Trust 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) VOC Energy Trust is facing in its current business environment.

The VOC Energy Trust is one of the leading firms in its industry. VOC Energy Trust 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 organization 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 helps the managers of the VOC Energy Trust 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect VOC Energy Trust strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to VOC Energy Trust SWOT Analysis

Strengths of VOC Energy Trust – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, VOC Energy Trust 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 VOC Energy Trust are –

Read - VOC Energy Trust Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Superb Performance in New Markets – VOC Energy Trust 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.
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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years VOC Energy Trust has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of VOC Energy Trust just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – VOC Energy Trust is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. VOC Energy Trust 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 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.
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.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

Weakness of VOC Energy Trust – Internal Strategic Factors

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

Opportunities for VOC Energy Trust – External Strategic Factors

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The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable VOC Energy Trust 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 VOC Energy Trust to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The new technology provides an opportunity to VOC Energy Trust 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 VOC Energy Trust products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
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 VOC Energy Trust in other product categories.
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 new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as VOC Energy Trust 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 VOC Energy Trust an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats VOC Energy Trust Facing - External Strategic Factors

Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Liability laws in different countries are different and VOC Energy Trust may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the VOC Energy Trust profitability.
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.
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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of VOC Energy Trust

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for VOC Energy Trust

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 VOC Energy Trust
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 VOC Energy Trust

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 VOC Energy Trust 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 VOC Energy Trust

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)