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Australian Unity Office Fund SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Australian Unity Office Fund managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is an important technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Australian Unity Office Fund is facing in its current business environment.
The Australian Unity Office Fund is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Australian Unity Office Fund maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
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Check out- Australian Unity Office Fund PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
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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 Australian Unity Office Fund 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 Australian Unity Office Fund strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Australian Unity Office Fund SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Australian Unity Office Fund – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, Australian Unity Office Fund 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 Australian Unity Office Fund are –
Read - Australian Unity Office Fund Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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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.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Australian Unity Office Fund is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Australian Unity Office Fund 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.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Australian Unity Office Fund products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Strong distribution network – Over the years Australian Unity Office Fund has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Australian Unity Office Fund has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Weakness of Australian Unity Office Fund – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Australian Unity Office Fund 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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- 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.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Australian Unity Office Fund 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 Australian Unity Office Fund is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Australian Unity Office Fund needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
- 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 Australian Unity Office Fund has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Australian Unity Office Fund are below the industry average.
Opportunities for Australian Unity Office Fund – External Strategic Factors
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- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Australian Unity Office Fund.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Australian Unity Office Fund to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Australian Unity Office Fund’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 Australian Unity Office Fund to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Australian Unity Office Fund to increase its profitability.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to Australian Unity Office Fund 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.
- 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 Australian Unity Office Fund in other product categories.
- 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.
Threats Australian Unity Office Fund Facing - External Strategic Factors
- The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
- Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Australian Unity Office Fund’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Australian Unity Office Fund
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Australian Unity Office Fund 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.
- 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 Australian Unity Office Fund
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 Australian Unity Office Fund
- 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 Australian Unity Office Fund
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 Australian Unity Office Fund 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 Australian Unity Office Fund
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)
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