Verdant Minerals Ltd SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Verdant Minerals Ltd 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) Verdant Minerals Ltd is facing in its current business environment.

The Verdant Minerals Ltd is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Verdant Minerals Ltd maintains its dominant 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Verdant Minerals Ltd strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Verdant Minerals Ltd SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Verdant Minerals Ltd – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd are –

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• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 distribution network – Over the years Verdant Minerals Ltd has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Verdant Minerals Ltd has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Verdant Minerals Ltd 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.
• 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.

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Weakness of Verdant Minerals Ltd – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Verdant Minerals Ltd 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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• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Verdant Minerals Ltd are below the industry average.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Verdant Minerals Ltd has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd – External Strategic Factors

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• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd. 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd’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 new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Verdant Minerals Ltd to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Verdant Minerals Ltd products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Verdant Minerals Ltd 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.
• 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.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Verdant Minerals Ltd may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Verdant Minerals Ltd   in those markets.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Verdant Minerals Ltd

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 Verdant Minerals Ltd
• 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd

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 Verdant Minerals Ltd 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 Verdant Minerals Ltd

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)