Molson Coors Brewing Company SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Molson Coors Brewing Company 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) Molson Coors Brewing Company is facing in its current business environment.

The Molson Coors Brewing Company is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Molson Coors Brewing Company maintains its prominent position in market by critically 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Molson Coors Brewing Company to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Molson Coors Brewing Company swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Molson Coors Brewing Company strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Molson Coors Brewing Company SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Molson Coors Brewing Company – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Molson Coors Brewing Company 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 Molson Coors Brewing Company are –

Read - Molson Coors Brewing Company Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Molson Coors Brewing Company has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Molson Coors Brewing Company 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 – Molson Coors Brewing Company 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 Molson Coors Brewing Company 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 – Molson Coors Brewing Company 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.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Molson Coors Brewing Company has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.

Weakness of Molson Coors Brewing Company – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Molson Coors Brewing Company 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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Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Molson Coors Brewing Company 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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Molson Coors Brewing Company 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 Molson Coors Brewing Company 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.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
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. Molson Coors Brewing Company has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Molson Coors Brewing Company are below the industry average.
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.

Opportunities for Molson Coors Brewing Company – External Strategic Factors

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Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Molson Coors Brewing Company products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Molson Coors Brewing Company to capture new customers and increase its market share.
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 Molson Coors Brewing Company in other product categories.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Molson Coors Brewing Company . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Molson Coors Brewing Company to increase its profitability.
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 Molson Coors Brewing Company. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Molson Coors Brewing Company an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Molson Coors Brewing Company 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.

Threats Molson Coors Brewing Company Facing - External Strategic Factors

Liability laws in different countries are different and Molson Coors Brewing Company may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies 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.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Molson Coors Brewing Company profitability.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Molson Coors Brewing Company’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Molson Coors Brewing Company

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 Molson Coors Brewing Company
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 Molson Coors Brewing Company

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 Molson Coors Brewing Company 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 Molson Coors Brewing Company

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)