Land Rover SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Land Rover is one of the leading firms in its industry. Land Rover 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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 enables the managers of the Land Rover 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 primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Land Rover strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Land Rover SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Land Rover – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Land Rover 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 Land Rover are –

Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Land Rover has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Land Rover just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
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.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Land Rover products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Land Rover has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Land Rover has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.

Weakness of Land Rover – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Land Rover 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.

High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Land Rover has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Land Rover is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present 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 Land Rover
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. Land Rover has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Land Rover is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
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 Land Rover – External Strategic Factors

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 Land Rover to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
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 Land Rover in other product categories.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Land Rover’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.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Land Rover to increase its profitability.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Land Rover . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Land Rover products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Land Rover.

Threats Land Rover Facing - External Strategic Factors

Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Land Rover
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.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
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.
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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Land Rover

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 Land Rover
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.

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Land Rover

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 Land Rover 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 Land Rover

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

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SWOT Worksheet & Template

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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)