Integrated Research Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Integrated Research Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Integrated Research Limited 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 organization 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 Integrated Research Limited to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Integrated Research Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Integrated Research Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Integrated Research Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Integrated Research Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Integrated Research 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 Integrated Research Limited are –

Read - Integrated Research Limited 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.
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.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Integrated Research Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Integrated Research Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Integrated Research Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Integrated Research Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.

Weakness of Integrated Research Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Integrated Research 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 Integrated Research Limited are below the industry average.
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 Integrated Research 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.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Integrated Research Limited 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.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Integrated Research Limited 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 Integrated Research Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
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 Integrated Research Limited

Opportunities for Integrated Research Limited – External Strategic Factors

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Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Integrated Research Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Integrated Research Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
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 Integrated Research Limited in other product categories.
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 Integrated Research 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.
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.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Integrated Research Limited 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 Integrated Research Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Integrated Research Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Integrated Research Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Integrated Research Limited
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Integrated Research Limited in those markets.
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.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Integrated Research Limited’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Integrated Research 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 Integrated Research 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 Integrated Research 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 Integrated Research 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 Integrated Research 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)