Xref Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Xref Limited is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Xref Limited maintains its prominent 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 firm 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 helps the managers of the Xref 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Xref Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Xref Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Xref Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Xref Limited has numerous strengths that help 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 Xref Limited are –

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Strong Free Cash Flow – Xref Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Xref 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.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Xref Limited 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Xref Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Xref Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Xref Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Xref Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of Xref Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Xref 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 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.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Xref 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.
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 Xref Limited
Limited success outside core business – Even though Xref Limited 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 Xref Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
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.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Xref Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for Xref Limited – External Strategic Factors

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Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Xref Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Xref Limited 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 Xref Limited.
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 Xref 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.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Xref 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 Xref 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.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Xref 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 Xref Limited in other product categories.

Threats Xref 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.
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.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Xref Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies 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.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Xref 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 Xref 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 Xref 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 Xref 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 Xref 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)