What types of risks are interest rate and exchange rate swaps designed to mitigate? Why might one

Question:

What types of risks are interest rate and swaps designed to mitigate? Why might one company prefer fixed-rate payments while another company prefers floating-rate payments, or payments in one currency versus another?

Exchange Rate
The value of one currency for the purpose of conversion to another. Exchange Rate means on any day, for purposes of determining the Dollar Equivalent of any currency other than Dollars, the rate at which such currency may be exchanged into Dollars...