Forte Consolidated Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Forte Consolidated Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Forte Consolidated Limited maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company 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 Forte Consolidated 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 primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Forte Consolidated Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Forte Consolidated Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Forte Consolidated Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

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

Read - Forte Consolidated Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Forte Consolidated 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Forte Consolidated Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• 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.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Forte Consolidated 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.
• 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.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Forte Consolidated Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Forte Consolidated Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Forte Consolidated Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.

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Weakness of Forte Consolidated Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Forte Consolidated 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.

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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. Forte Consolidated 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.
• 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Forte Consolidated Limited are below the industry average.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Forte Consolidated 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.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated Limited – External Strategic Factors

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• 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 Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated Limited in other product categories.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Forte Consolidated Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Forte Consolidated Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Forte Consolidated Limited.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Forte Consolidated Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• 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 Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated Limited 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Forte Consolidated Limited   in those markets.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Forte Consolidated Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• 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 Forte Consolidated Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Forte Consolidated Limited
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated 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 Forte Consolidated 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

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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)