Wollongong Coal Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Wollongong Coal Limited is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Wollongong Coal Limited maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis an immensenly 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 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 helps the managers of the Wollongong Coal 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 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 Wollongong Coal Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Wollongong Coal Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Wollongong Coal Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal Limited are –

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• Strong Free Cash Flow – Wollongong Coal Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• 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.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Wollongong Coal Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Wollongong Coal Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Wollongong Coal Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Wollongong Coal Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Wollongong Coal 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.
• 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.

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Weakness of Wollongong Coal Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Wollongong Coal 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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• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Wollongong Coal Limited are below the industry average.
• 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 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.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Wollongong Coal Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Wollongong Coal 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.
• 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 Wollongong Coal Limited

Opportunities for Wollongong Coal Limited – External Strategic Factors

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• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Wollongong Coal Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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 Wollongong Coal Limited in other product categories.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal 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.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Wollongong Coal Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Wollongong Coal Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.

Threats Wollongong Coal 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.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Wollongong Coal Limited
• 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.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Wollongong Coal Limited profitability.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal 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 Wollongong Coal 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)