Rockwell Collins SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Rockwell Collins is one of the leading firms in its industry. Rockwell Collins maintains its prominent 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Rockwell Collins 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Rockwell Collins strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Rockwell Collins SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Rockwell Collins – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Rockwell Collins 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 Rockwell Collins are –

Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Rockwell Collins 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.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Rockwell Collins 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.
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.

Weakness of Rockwell Collins – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Rockwell Collins can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Rockwell Collins are below the industry average.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Rockwell Collins has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
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 Rockwell Collins
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. Rockwell Collins has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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.
The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Rockwell Collins is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.

Opportunities for Rockwell Collins – External Strategic Factors

The new technology provides an opportunity to Rockwell Collins to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Rockwell Collins’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 Rockwell Collins to increase its profitability.
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 Rockwell Collins . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Rockwell Collins an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
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 Rockwell Collins 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 Rockwell Collins to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.

Threats Rockwell Collins Facing - External Strategic Factors

New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
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.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Rockwell Collins
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Rockwell Collins’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Rockwell Collins

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 Rockwell Collins
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 Rockwell Collins

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 Rockwell Collins 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 Rockwell Collins

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

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)