C4X Discovery Holdings Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by C4X Discovery Holdings Plc managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a handy technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) C4X Discovery Holdings Plc is facing in its current business environment.

The C4X Discovery Holdings Plc is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. C4X Discovery Holdings 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 company 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 helps the managers of the C4X Discovery Holdings 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 utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect C4X Discovery Holdings Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to C4X Discovery Holdings Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of C4X Discovery Holdings Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, C4X Discovery Holdings 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 C4X Discovery Holdings Plc are –

Read - C4X Discovery Holdings Plc Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – C4X Discovery Holdings Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. C4X Discovery Holdings 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.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – C4X Discovery Holdings Plc has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• 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 developing new products – product innovation.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to C4X Discovery Holdings Plc products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years C4X Discovery Holdings Plc has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.

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Weakness of C4X Discovery Holdings Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where C4X Discovery Holdings 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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• 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 C4X Discovery Holdings Plc is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry C4X Discovery Holdings 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though C4X Discovery Holdings Plc is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though C4X Discovery Holdings Plc is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of C4X Discovery Holdings 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, C4X Discovery Holdings 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.

Opportunities for C4X Discovery Holdings Plc – External Strategic Factors

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• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of C4X Discovery Holdings Plc products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided C4X Discovery Holdings Plc an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• 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 C4X Discovery Holdings Plc to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for C4X Discovery Holdings Plc to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to C4X Discovery Holdings 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.
• 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 C4X Discovery Holdings Plc in other product categories.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the C4X Discovery Holdings Plc . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of C4X Discovery Holdings Plc.

Threats C4X Discovery Holdings Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to C4X Discovery Holdings Plc’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and C4X Discovery Holdings Plc may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the C4X Discovery Holdings Plc profitability.
• 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.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for C4X Discovery Holdings 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 C4X Discovery Holdings 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 C4X Discovery Holdings 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 C4X Discovery Holdings 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 C4X Discovery Holdings 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)