Frontera Resources Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Frontera Resources Corporation 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) Frontera Resources Corporation is facing in its current business environment.

The Frontera Resources Corporation is one of the leading companies in its industry. Frontera Resources Corporation maintains its dominant 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 firm 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 Frontera Resources Corporation 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 an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Frontera Resources Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Frontera Resources Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Frontera Resources Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Frontera Resources Corporation 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 Frontera Resources Corporation are –

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• Superb Performance in New Markets – Frontera Resources Corporation 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Frontera Resources Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Frontera Resources Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Frontera Resources Corporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Frontera Resources Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.
• 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.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Frontera Resources Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

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Weakness of Frontera Resources Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Frontera Resources Corporation 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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• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Frontera Resources Corporation 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.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Frontera Resources Corporation are below the industry average.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Frontera Resources Corporation 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 Frontera Resources Corporation 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 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. Frontera Resources Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• 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 Frontera Resources Corporation is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.

Opportunities for Frontera Resources Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Frontera Resources Corporation to increase its profitability.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Frontera Resources Corporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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 Frontera Resources Corporation 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 Frontera Resources Corporation to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Frontera Resources Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Frontera Resources Corporation.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Frontera Resources Corporation 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 Frontera Resources Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Frontera Resources Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards 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.
• 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.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Frontera Resources Corporation   in those 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 Frontera Resources Corporation

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Frontera Resources Corporation

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 Frontera Resources Corporation
• 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 Frontera Resources Corporation

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 Frontera Resources Corporation 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 Frontera Resources Corporation

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)