Order custom Harvard Business Case Study Analysis & Solution. Starting just $19
Fern Fort University
Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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) Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 is facing in its current business environment.
The Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 is one of the leading firms in its industry. Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
Order Now - Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 SWOT Analysis
Check out- Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
The SWOT Analysis framework enables 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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading companies in its industry, Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 are –
Read - Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
- Strong distribution network – Over the years Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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 Free Cash Flow – Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Weakness of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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.
Article continues after advertisement
- Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
- 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.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
- 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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Opportunities for Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 – External Strategic Factors
Article continues after advertisement
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- 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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- 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.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2.
Threats Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 in those markets.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Medallion Trust Series 2015-2’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 profitability.
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
- 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.
- 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.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Medallion Trust Series 2015-2
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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2
- 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.
Article continues after advertisement
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2
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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2 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 Medallion Trust Series 2015-2
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.
Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Medallion Trust Series 2015-2
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)
Order Now
Previous 5 SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2015-1 SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2014-2 SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2014-1P SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2014-1 SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2013-2 SWOT Analysis
Next 5 SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2016-1 SWOT Analysis
- Medallion Trust Series 2016-2 SWOT Analysis
- Millinium'S Alternatives Fund. SWOT Analysis
- Monash Absolute Investment Company Limited SWOT Analysis
- Naos Absolute Opportunities Company Limited SWOT Analysis
HBR Case Studies Solutions
- General Electric vs. Westinghouse in Large Turbine Generators (B) case study solution
- Executive Pay and the Credit Crisis of 2008 (A), Spanish Version case study solution
- Esquel Group: Transforming Into a Vertically Integrated, Service-Oriented, Leading Manufacturer of Quality Cotton Apparel case study solution
- Mike Mayo Takes on Citigroup (A) case study solution
- An Intern's Dilemma (B) case study solution