State Street Corp. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The State Street Corp. is one of the leading firms in its industry. State Street Corp. maintains its dominant position in market by critically 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the State Street Corp. 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 State Street Corp. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to State Street Corp. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of State Street Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, State Street Corp. has numerous strengths that enable 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 State Street Corp. are –

• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. State Street Corp. is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – State Street Corp. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to State Street Corp. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years State Street Corp. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of State Street Corp. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – State Street Corp. 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.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years State Street Corp. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.

Weakness of State Street Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where State Street Corp. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, State Street Corp. needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
• Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that State Street Corp. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though State Street Corp. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of State Street Corp. are below the industry average.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though State Street Corp. 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.
• 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. State Street Corp. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though State Street Corp. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for State Street Corp. – External Strategic Factors

• 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 State Street Corp.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• 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 State Street Corp. 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 State Street Corp. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided State Street Corp. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of State Street Corp.’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.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for State Street Corp. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• 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.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the State Street Corp. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats State Street Corp. 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.
• 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for State Street Corp.   in those markets.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to State Street Corp.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of State Street Corp.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for State Street Corp.

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 State Street Corp.
• 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 State Street Corp.

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 State Street Corp. 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 State Street Corp.

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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of State Street Corp.

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)