Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is an important technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP is facing in its current business environment.

The Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP maintains its dominant 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 firm 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 enables the managers of the Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP to develop four types of strategies:

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

Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP are –

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Strong Free Cash Flow – Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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 – Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP are below the industry average.
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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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, Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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.

Opportunities for Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP – External Strategic Factors

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The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP to increase its profitability.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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.
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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP in other product categories.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP.
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.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP’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.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP products by the state as well as federal government contractors.

Threats Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP Facing - External Strategic Factors

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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
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.
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.
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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP

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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP
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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP

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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP 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 Westmoreland Resource Partners, LP

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)