Barclays PLC SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Barclays PLC is one of the leading firms in its industry. Barclays PLC maintains its dominant position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


Order Now - Barclays PLC SWOT Analysis
Check out- Barclays PLC PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement


The SWOT Analysis framework helps 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 Barclays 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Barclays PLC strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Barclays PLC SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Barclays PLC – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Barclays 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 Barclays PLC are –

Read - Barclays PLC Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its 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 Barclays PLC has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Barclays PLC just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Barclays 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Barclays PLC is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Barclays 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 – Barclays PLC has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.

---

Weakness of Barclays PLC – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Barclays 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.

Article continues after advertisement

• 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 Barclays PLC is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Barclays PLC has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• 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 Barclays PLC is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Barclays 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 highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Barclays PLC is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Barclays PLC are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Barclays PLC – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

• 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 Barclays 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 Barclays 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 Barclays PLC . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Barclays 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 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 Barclays 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.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Barclays PLC to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Barclays PLC an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• 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 Barclays PLC in other product categories.

Threats Barclays PLC Facing - External Strategic Factors

• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Barclays PLC’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• 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 Barclays PLC profitability.
• 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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Barclays PLC may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Barclays 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 Barclays 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Barclays 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 Barclays 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 Barclays 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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Barclays PLC

Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

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)