Great Western Exploration Limited. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Great Western Exploration Limited. is one of the leading companies in its industry. Great Western Exploration Limited. maintains its dominant position in market by carefully 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 - Great Western Exploration Limited. SWOT Analysis
Check out- Great Western Exploration 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 enables the managers of the Great Western Exploration 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 a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Great Western Exploration Limited. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Great Western Exploration Limited. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Great Western Exploration Limited. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Great Western Exploration 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 Great Western Exploration Limited. are –

Read - Great Western Exploration Limited. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

• Superb Performance in New Markets – Great Western Exploration 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Great Western Exploration 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.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Great Western Exploration Limited. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Great Western Exploration Limited. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Great Western Exploration Limited. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.

---

Weakness of Great Western Exploration Limited. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Great Western Exploration 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.

Article continues after advertisement

• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Great Western Exploration Limited. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Great Western Exploration Limited. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Great Western Exploration Limited. are below the industry average.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Great Western Exploration Limited. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Great Western Exploration 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 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.
• 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 Great Western Exploration Limited.

Opportunities for Great Western Exploration Limited. – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

• The new technology provides an opportunity to Great Western Exploration 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.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Great Western Exploration Limited. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Great Western Exploration Limited. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Great Western Exploration Limited. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Great Western Exploration Limited. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Great Western Exploration Limited. to increase its profitability.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Great Western Exploration Limited..
• 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 Great Western Exploration 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.

Threats Great Western Exploration Limited. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Liability laws in different countries are different and Great Western Exploration Limited. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those 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.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• 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.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Great Western Exploration Limited.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Great Western Exploration Limited.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Great Western Exploration Limited.   in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Great Western Exploration 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 Great Western Exploration 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 Great Western Exploration 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 Great Western Exploration 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 Great Western Exploration 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 Great Western Exploration 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)