Kalium Lakes Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Kalium Lakes 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) Kalium Lakes Limited is facing in its current business environment.

The Kalium Lakes Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Kalium Lakes Limited 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 organization 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Kalium Lakes 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 firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Kalium Lakes Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Kalium Lakes Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Kalium Lakes Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

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

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• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Kalium Lakes Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Kalium Lakes Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Kalium Lakes Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Kalium Lakes Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Kalium Lakes 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.
• 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.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Kalium Lakes 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 – Kalium Lakes Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.

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Weakness of Kalium Lakes Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Kalium Lakes 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.

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• 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.
• 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.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Kalium Lakes 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.
• 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 Kalium Lakes Limited
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Kalium Lakes 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 Kalium Lakes Limited 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 Kalium Lakes 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 Kalium Lakes Limited – External Strategic Factors

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• 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.
• 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 Kalium Lakes Limited in other product categories.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Kalium Lakes 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.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Kalium Lakes Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Kalium Lakes Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• 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 Kalium Lakes 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.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Kalium Lakes Limited.
• 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 Kalium Lakes Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Kalium Lakes Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Kalium Lakes 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.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
• 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.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Kalium Lakes Limited

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Kalium Lakes 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 Kalium Lakes 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 Kalium Lakes 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 Kalium Lakes 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 Kalium Lakes 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)