Countryside Properties Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Countryside Properties Plc managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a handy technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Countryside Properties Plc is facing in its current business environment.

The Countryside Properties Plc is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Countryside Properties Plc maintains its dominant 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 firm 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Countryside Properties Plc to develop four types of strategies:

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

Countryside Properties Plc swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Countryside Properties Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Countryside Properties Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Countryside Properties Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Countryside Properties Plc 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 Countryside Properties Plc are –

Read - Countryside Properties Plc Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Countryside Properties Plc 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 distribution network – Over the years Countryside Properties Plc has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
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.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Countryside Properties Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Countryside Properties Plc just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Countryside Properties Plc has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Countryside Properties Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

Weakness of Countryside Properties Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Countryside Properties Plc can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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Limited success outside core business – Even though Countryside Properties Plc is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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 Countryside Properties Plc
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Countryside Properties Plc are below the industry average.
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 Countryside Properties Plc is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. Countryside Properties Plc has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Countryside Properties Plc 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.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.

Opportunities for Countryside Properties Plc – 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 Countryside Properties Plc.
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 Countryside Properties Plc to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Countryside Properties Plc’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.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Countryside Properties Plc products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Countryside Properties Plc to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Countryside Properties Plc an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
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 new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Countryside Properties Plc to increase its profitability.

Threats Countryside Properties Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

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.
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.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Countryside Properties Plc
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.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Countryside Properties Plc

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 Countryside Properties Plc
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 Countryside Properties Plc

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 Countryside Properties Plc 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 Countryside Properties Plc

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)