Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc is one of the leading companies in its industry. Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc are –

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• 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.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.

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Weakness of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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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• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.
• 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 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.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc – External Strategic Factors

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• 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.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.
• 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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.

Threats Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc   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.
• 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.
• 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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 Jardine Lloyd Thompson 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)