Fundamental Company Reports

SWOT, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, is an analytical framework that identifies the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable for a company.

VRIO stands for Value, Rarity, Imitability, Organization. This analysis helps to evaluate all company’s resources and capabilities and bring them together into one aggregate table that includes:

• Tangible resources
  • Financial
  • Physical
  • Technological
  • Organizational
• Intangible resources
  • Human
  • Innovation and Creativity
  • Reputation
• Organizational capabilities

The result of the analysis gives a clear picture of company’s competitive and economic implications, answering the questions if the resources mentioned above are:

• Valuable?
• Rare?
• Costly to imitate?
• Organized properly?

PESTEL (also termed as PESTLE) is an ideal tool to strategically analyze what influence different outside factors – political, economic, sociocultural, technological, environmental and legal – exert on a business to later chart its long term targets.

Being part of the external analysis when carrying out a strategic assessment or performing a market study, PESTEL gives an overview of diverse macro-environmental factors that any company should thoughtfully consider. By perceiving these outside environments, businesses can maximally benefit from the opportunities while minimizing the threats to the organization.

Key Factors Examined by PESTEL Analysis:

• Political – What opportunities and pressures are brought by political bodies and what is the degree of public regulations’ impact on the business?
• Economic – What economic policies, trends and structures are expected to affect the organization, what is this influence’s degree?
• Sociological – What cultural and societal aspects will work upon the demand for the business’s products and operations?
• Technological – What impact do the technological aspects, innovations, incentives and barriers have on the organization?
• Environmental – What environmental and ecological facets, both locally and farther afield, are likely to predetermine the business?
• Legal – What laws and legislation will exert influence on the style the business is carried out?

The Porter’s five forces analysis studies the industry of operation and helps the company find new sources of competitive advantage. The analysis surveys an industry through five major questions:

1. What composes a threat of substitute products and services?
2. Is there a threat of new competitors entering the market?
3. What is the intensity of competitive rivalry?
4. How big is the bargaining power of buyers?
5. How significant is the bargaining power of suppliers?

The Internal Factor Evaluation matrix (IFE matrix) is a strategic management tool helping audit or evaluate major weaknesses and strengths in a business’s functional areas. In addition, IFE matrix serves as a basis for identifying and assessing relationships amongst those areas. The IFE matrix is utilised in strategy formulation.

The External Factor Evaluation matrix (EFE matrix) is a tool of strategic management that is typically utilised to assess current market conditions. It is an ideal instrument for visualising and prioritising the threats and opportunities a firm is facing.

The essential difference between the above mentioned matrices lies in the type of factors incorporated in the model; whilst the latter is engaged in internal factors, the former deals exceptionally with external factors – those exposed to social, political, economic, legal, etc. external forces.

Being a continuation of the EFE matrix and IFE matrix models, the Internal External matrix (IE matrix) rests upon an investigation of external and internal business factors integrated into one suggestive model.