Hilton Food Group Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Hilton Food Group Plc is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Hilton Food Group Plc maintains its prominent 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.


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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 helps the managers of the Hilton Food Group Plc 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Hilton Food Group Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Hilton Food Group Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Hilton Food Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Hilton Food Group Plc 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 Hilton Food Group Plc are –

Read - Hilton Food Group Plc Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Hilton Food Group Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Hilton Food Group Plc just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Hilton Food Group Plc 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.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Hilton Food Group 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.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Hilton Food Group Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• 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.

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Weakness of Hilton Food Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Hilton Food Group 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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• 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.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Hilton Food Group Plc are below the industry average.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Hilton Food Group Plc 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 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 Hilton Food Group Plc is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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 Hilton Food Group Plc is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Hilton Food Group Plc has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.

Opportunities for Hilton Food Group Plc – External Strategic Factors

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• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Hilton Food Group Plc products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Hilton Food Group Plc . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Hilton Food Group Plc to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• 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 Hilton Food Group Plc 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 Hilton Food Group Plc. 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.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Hilton Food Group Plc.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Hilton Food Group Plc an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Hilton Food Group Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Hilton Food Group Plc’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 .
• 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.
• 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.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Hilton Food Group Plc profitability.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Hilton Food Group 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 Hilton Food Group 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 Hilton Food Group 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 Hilton Food Group 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 Hilton Food Group 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

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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)