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How to conduct a strategic analysis
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SWOT Analysis
Strengths
One of the biggest strengths of ConocoPhillips is its huge size standing as second largest American oil company. With its operation expanded to more than 30 countries, the company owns about 10,000 outlets to distribute gasoline. This huge size financial size of the company also allows it to explore, extract, produce, refine, market and distribute at various sites thereby giving rise to the increasing income.
The company adopts the principle of diversifying risk. LUKOIL, which undertakes risky projects like exploration of Russian Blocs, is a company in which ConocoPhillips owns a 20 % stake. This 20% of investment in LUKOIL allows companies to reap the benefit by undertaking risky projects without has taken considerable amount of high risk. By providing technical expertise to LUKOIL, the company have maintained good and cordial relationship with the government of Russia.
Weaknesses
The major weakness of ConocoPhillips is not having a stable income or earnings. The oil price is highly affected by small change in economic phenomena of the world so this high volatility of price will often make the earning prediction wrong. The unlevered beta of the ConocoPhillips is comparatively higher than that of industry with 1.21, which shows that the company is highly susceptible to market conditions. When the economic conditions are well above the normal, then price of oil upsurges thereby increasing the profits above expectations while negative is the case in poor economic condition. This dependence of income on oil prices possess risk to company’s business model and shows that the business is exposed to a higher degree of risk. Having almost complete dependence on oil for business, there is no way that company ca...
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...itumen, lubricants, and solvents.
To remain competitive and increase profit margin, the company should focus on cost minimization techniques so that when the prices of oil goes down, then the company will still have high earnings as compared to others in the industry. This will bring the company into a superior position as compared to others, which will allow the company to undertake new profitable ventures even at the period of falling prices.
Petroleum mines are not sustainable and with the passage of time, the mines are exhausted. Therefore, with the passage of time, when the mines are exhausted, then the company will have negative earnings growth. To avoid this situation, the company must seek, identify and locate newer oil mines to extract. The company should be ready with the acquisition plans in case they get the opportunity to acquire high yielding mines.
Exxon Mobil is world’s largest publicly traded integrated oil company serving companies in more than 200 countries worldwide. Standard and Poor’s stock report for Exxon Mobil indicates that Exxon’s global functional organization and substantial diversification helps mitigate its exposure to business risk and margin volatility.
The first observation from the financial data in appendix one is that General Motors has a low profit margin and is generally less than the industry average each year. The firm is able to keep a low profit margin because they have such high sales volumes throughout the world. This strategy can be both an asset and liability in business planning. The plus side of the strategy is that GM is able to sell a large number of vehicles in the marketplace due to the lower selling price as compared to the competitor. However, the down side of the strategy is that there is a possibility that if sales volumes decrease, the firm can incur a significant decline in the EPS because the profit margin on each item sold is very low. If the global economy sours, GM can have a very difficult time meeting shareholder expectations.
The global oversupply of crude affects Exxon. In the fourth quarters of last year, Brent and other crudes price were down sharply more than a third to an average of cost of $80 a barrel. This affected fourth quarter earnings. Exxon’s fourth quarter earnings fell 16%. Fortunately, most experts doubt the oil price will recover until half of the year although it recently increased more than 10 percent. Although the company experienced decline in revenue, it face to positive. Exxon faces to positive from its drilling, and has in a global-wide expansion and development plan.
Both the CEO of Exxon, Lee Raymond, and the CEO of Mobil, Lucio Noto, announced that it is because of this reduction in prices and downsizing within the oil industry that the merger is taking place, the very nature of the oil industry was becoming increasingly competitive. The oil industry as whole was becoming more efficient, causing oil prices to fallr. Firms can only maintain their prices equal to or above marginal cost, and if prices are lower than marginal...
DuPont is a very big company with a low debt policy designed to maximize financial flexibility and insulate operations from financial constraints. It is one of the few AAA rated manufacturing companies due its investments are primarily financed from internal sources. However, because prices fell in the 1960’s thus DuPont’s net income fell also. The adverse economic conditions in 1970’s escalated inflation: increase in oil prices increased required inventory investments of the company. 1975 recession negatively affected DuPont’s net income by 33% and returns on capital and earnings per share fell. The company cut dividends in 1974 and working capital investment removed. Proportion of debt increased from 7% in 1972 to 27% in 1975 and interest coverage falls from 38 to 4.6. The company perceived increase in debt temporary but moved quickly to reduce its debt ratio by decreasing capital expenditures. Debt proportion dropped to 20%, interest coverage increased to 11.5 by 1979.
In assessing Du Pont’s capital structure after the Conoco merger that significantly increased the company’s debt to equity ratio, an analyst must look at all benefits and drawbacks of a high debt ratio. The main reason why Du Pont ended up with a high debt to equity ratio after acquiring Conoco was due to the timing and price at which they bought Conoco. Du Pont ended up buying the firm at its peak, just before coal and oil prices started to fall and at a time when economic recession hurt the chemical industry of Du Pont. The additional response from analysts and Du Pont stockholders also forced Du Pont to think twice about their new expansion. The thought of bringing the debt ratio back to 25% was brought on by the fact that the company saw that high levels of capital spending were vital to the success of the firm and that high debt levels may put them at higher risk for defaulting.
Consequently, Russia offers U.S. businesses both high risk, and potentially high rewards. Russian firms and customers admire U.S. technology and know-how, and generally are interested in doing business with U.S. companies. At the same time, there is a tendency in some quarters to suppose that the U.S. is responsible for the changes which have occurred in Russia, especially those which have caused most hardship to individuals and to industry. This sentiment has attracted the support of some political leaders, and in given credence by a significant proportion of the populace. At the same time, a strong U.S. commercial presence is viewed in the Russian Far East as a counterbalance to other regional economic powers.
As “5.1 Cut Costs & Reduce Prices” results in both increased profits and increased market
The cyclical nature of the resources industry means that both FMG and ILU’s performance will be positively affected when world economies are strong and minerals are in high demand, and adversely affected in economic slowdowns. Whilst both companies’ performance will be negatively impacted by China’s slowing economic growth in the short term, the severity of the consequences are different for FMG and ILU. For FMG, China’s slowing economic growth means that there is less ‘end user’ demand for Iron Ore, leading to a further reduction in prices, negatively impacting FMG’s results (Oliver 2014). For ILU their significant market share affords the company to ramp down production and allow inventories to build, keeping earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation margin at sustainable figures to offset reduced demand (McArthur
This financial ratio analysis will help to identify Rolls-Royce’s strength and weaknesses during three years period from 2011 until the end of 2013. While it is a helpful tool for investors to make investment decisions base on profitability of the company, managers can make strategic decisions of the company. However, there are some limitations in using financial ratio analysis alone when make decisions. Comparing ratios with the industry norm and with the company’s rivals, the user of the financial ratio analysis will be able to anticipate future prospects. Rolls-Royce’s nearest rivals are General Electric (GE) and Pratt & Whitney, owned by United Technologies Corporation (UTC). These world 's top three companies are investing massively in R&D to satisfy demand of a booming global market for environmentally cleaner, energy efficient power engines that result in a huge number of orders of commercial airliners. All top
At this point in the oil market, the barriers to entry were extremely low. One could buy a small refinery for $10,000 and a large...
MSCI, a budgetary investigation firm with extraordinary aptitude in surveying the estimation of intangibles like carbon hazard, examined the petroleum business'execution in five key classifications: operations, wellbeing and security; capacity to get to assets in developing markets; carbon discharges; interest in option vitality; and interest in unpredictable fossil powers like oil sands and oil shale, coal bed methane and coal crease gas, and both gas-to-fluid and coal-to-fluid energizes.
The oil and gas industry, today, striving to discover a harmony between climbing worldwide request and lessening assets, and keep up control and circulation of working expenses. In the oil and gas industry today, most organizations are looking to expand the productivity of their worldwide portfolios during a period of developing questionable matter. Keep up superior ¬ pleasant pussy against high expenses, high costs, and expanded rivalry were never all the more testing.
The industry is divided into three distinct sectors including the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. The upstream sector includes the exploration and production of crude oil as well as the exploration and production of natural gas. This sector has experienced the largest amount of deals in terms of mergers and acquisitions, which will be further discuss in section III. The midstream sector involves the transportation of extracted petroleum from the upstream sector through pipelines, rail, barge, truck as well as storage. Finally, the downstream sector connects the end consumers through derived products such as gasoline, liquefied natural gas (LPG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), kerosene (aircrafts), and diesel…