London & Associated Properties Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The London & Associated Properties Plc is one of the leading firms in its industry. London & Associated Properties Plc maintains its dominant 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the London & Associated Properties 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 company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect London & Associated Properties Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to London & Associated Properties Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of London & Associated Properties Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties Plc are –

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• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – London & Associated Properties 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 Free Cash Flow – London & Associated Properties Plc has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to London & Associated Properties Plc products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• 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.
• 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years London & Associated Properties Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of London & Associated Properties Plc just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

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Weakness of London & Associated Properties Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where London & Associated Properties 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.

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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 London & Associated Properties Plc
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, London & Associated Properties 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 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 London & Associated Properties 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.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though London & Associated Properties Plc is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties Plc are below the industry average.

Opportunities for London & Associated Properties Plc – External Strategic Factors

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• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of London & Associated Properties Plc products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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 London & Associated Properties Plc in other product categories.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties Plc.
• 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.
• 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 London & Associated Properties 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.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as London & Associated Properties Plc to increase its profitability.

Threats London & Associated Properties Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• 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.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the London & Associated Properties Plc profitability.
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties 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 London & Associated Properties 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)