Fairpoint Group Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Fairpoint 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) Fairpoint Group Plc is facing in its current business environment.

The Fairpoint Group Plc is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Fairpoint Group 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 organization 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 Fairpoint 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Fairpoint Group Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Fairpoint Group Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Fairpoint Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

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

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• 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 – Fairpoint Group 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 – Fairpoint 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.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Fairpoint Group Plc 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 Fairpoint Group 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 – Fairpoint Group Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.

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Weakness of Fairpoint Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

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

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• 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 Fairpoint Group Plc
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Fairpoint Group Plc are below the industry average.
• 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, Fairpoint Group 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Fairpoint 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 Fairpoint 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.
• 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. Fairpoint Group Plc has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.

Opportunities for Fairpoint Group Plc – External Strategic Factors

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• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Fairpoint Group Plc to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Fairpoint Group Plc products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Fairpoint 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.
• 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 Fairpoint Group Plc.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Fairpoint Group Plc an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• 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 Fairpoint Group Plc in other product categories.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Fairpoint 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.

Threats Fairpoint Group Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• 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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Fairpoint Group Plc may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Fairpoint Group Plc   in those markets.
• 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.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Fairpoint Group Plc profitability.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Fairpoint 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 Fairpoint 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 Fairpoint 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 Fairpoint 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 Fairpoint 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

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)