Popular, Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Popular, Inc. managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is an important technique to analyze the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Popular, Inc. is facing in its current business environment.

The Popular, Inc. is one of the leading companies in its industry. Popular, Inc. 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 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 enables the managers of the Popular, Inc. 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 use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Popular, Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Popular, Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Popular, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Popular, Inc. 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 Popular, Inc. are –

Read - Popular, Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Popular, Inc. 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.
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.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Popular, Inc. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Popular, Inc. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.

Weakness of Popular, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Popular, Inc. 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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Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Popular, Inc. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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. Popular, Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Popular, Inc. are below the industry average.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Popular, Inc. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
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 Popular, Inc.
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.

Opportunities for Popular, Inc. – External Strategic Factors

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Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Popular, Inc..
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Popular, Inc. 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 Popular, Inc. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Popular, Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
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 Popular, Inc.. 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 Popular, Inc. to increase its profitability.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Popular, Inc. 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 Popular, Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Popular, Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Popular, Inc. 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.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Popular, Inc. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those 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.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Popular, Inc. in those markets.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Popular, Inc.

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 Popular, Inc.
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 Popular, Inc.

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 Popular, Inc. 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 Popular, Inc.

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

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)