Cudeco Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Cudeco Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Cudeco 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.

Order Now - Cudeco Limited SWOT Analysis
Check out- Cudeco Limited PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

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 Cudeco 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 main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Cudeco Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Cudeco Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Cudeco Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Cudeco Limited 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 Cudeco Limited are –

Read - Cudeco Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

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.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Cudeco Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Cudeco Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Cudeco 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 Cudeco Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Cudeco Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
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 Cudeco Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Cudeco Limited 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.

Article continues after advertisement

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 Cudeco Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that Cudeco Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Cudeco Limited needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Cudeco Limited are below the industry average.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Cudeco Limited is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.

Opportunities for Cudeco Limited – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Cudeco Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
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 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 Cudeco 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.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Cudeco 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 Cudeco Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Cudeco Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
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 Cudeco Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
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 Cudeco Limited in other product categories.

Threats Cudeco 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.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Cudeco Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies 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.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Cudeco Limited in those markets.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Cudeco Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
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 pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Cudeco Limited

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Cudeco 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 Cudeco 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cudeco 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 Cudeco 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 Cudeco 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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cudeco Limited

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)