Comptoir Group Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Comptoir Group Plc is one of the leading firms in its industry. Comptoir Group Plc maintains its prominent 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.


Order Now - Comptoir Group Plc SWOT Analysis
Check out- Comptoir Group Plc PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement


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 Comptoir 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 main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Comptoir Group Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Comptoir Group Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Comptoir Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Comptoir 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 Comptoir Group Plc are –

Read - Comptoir Group Plc Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

• 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.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Comptoir Group Plc has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Comptoir Group Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Comptoir Group Plc just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Comptoir Group Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Comptoir 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 skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Comptoir 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.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.

---

Weakness of Comptoir Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Comptoir Group Plc 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.

Article continues after advertisement

• 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.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.
• 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. Comptoir Group Plc has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Comptoir Group Plc is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Comptoir Group Plc is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Comptoir 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.

Opportunities for Comptoir Group Plc – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

• 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.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Comptoir Group Plc 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 Comptoir Group 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.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Comptoir Group Plc 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.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Comptoir Group Plc.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Comptoir Group Plc . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• 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 Comptoir 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.
• 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 Comptoir Group Plc in other product categories.

Threats Comptoir Group Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Liability laws in different countries are different and Comptoir Group Plc may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• 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.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Comptoir Group Plc
• 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.
• 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.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Comptoir Group Plc   in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Comptoir 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 Comptoir 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Comptoir 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 Comptoir 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 Comptoir 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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Comptoir Group Plc

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)