Silver Mines Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Silver Mines Limited is one of the leading companies in its industry. Silver Mines 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 company 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 helps the managers of the Silver Mines 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 company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Silver Mines Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Silver Mines Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Silver Mines Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Silver Mines 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 Silver Mines Limited are –

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• 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.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Silver Mines 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 developing new products – product innovation.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Silver Mines 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.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.

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Weakness of Silver Mines Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Silver Mines Limited 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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• 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 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. Silver Mines Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Silver Mines 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Silver Mines Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Silver Mines 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 Silver Mines Limited are below the industry average.
• 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.

Opportunities for Silver Mines 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.
• 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 Mines Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Silver Mines 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.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Silver Mines Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Silver Mines Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Silver Mines Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• 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 Mines 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 Silver Mines 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 Silver Mines Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Silver Mines Limited
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Silver Mines 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.
• 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.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Silver Mines Limited profitability.
• 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 company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Silver Mines 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 Mines 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 Mines 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 Mines 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 Mines 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)