Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc is one of the leading firms in its industry. Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


Order Now - Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc SWOT Analysis
Check out- Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc are –

Read - Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• 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 Free Cash Flow – Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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.

---

Weakness of Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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.

Article continues after advertisement

• 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. Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc are below the industry average.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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.
• 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.
• 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.

Opportunities for Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

• 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc in other product categories.
• 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc products by the state as well as federal government contractors.

Threats Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc   in those markets.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc profitability.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Plc’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income 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.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust 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)