Silver Lake Resources Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Silver Lake Resources Limited is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Silver Lake Resources Limited maintains its prominent position in market by carefully 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 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 enables the managers of the Silver Lake Resources Limited to develop four types of strategies:

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

Silver Lake Resources Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Silver Lake Resources Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Silver Lake Resources Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Silver Lake Resources Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources Limited are –

Read - Silver Lake Resources Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Silver Lake Resources 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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Silver Lake Resources 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Silver Lake Resources Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Silver Lake Resources Limited 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 – Silver Lake Resources Limited 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.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Silver Lake Resources Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.

Weakness of Silver Lake Resources Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Silver Lake Resources 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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Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Silver Lake Resources 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.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Silver Lake Resources Limited are below the industry average.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Silver Lake Resources Limited is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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.
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 Silver Lake Resources Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Silver Lake Resources Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.

Opportunities for Silver Lake Resources 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.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Silver Lake Resources 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.
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 Silver Lake Resources Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
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 Silver Lake Resources 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.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Silver Lake Resources Limited to increase its profitability.

Threats Silver Lake Resources Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Silver Lake Resources Limited in those markets.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Silver Lake Resources Limited profitability.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Silver Lake Resources Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Silver Lake Resources Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
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.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources 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 Silver Lake Resources 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

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)