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Meritor SWOT Analysis / Matrix
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SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Meritor managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is an important technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Meritor is facing in its current business environment.
The Meritor is one of the leading companies in its industry. Meritor 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates 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 enables the managers of the Meritor 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 an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Meritor strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Meritor SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Meritor – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, Meritor 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 Meritor are –
- 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 Meritor products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Meritor 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 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.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Meritor has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Meritor has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Meritor just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- 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.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Weakness of Meritor – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Meritor 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.
- 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.
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Meritor has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Meritor is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- 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 Meritor is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Meritor 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Meritor are below the industry average.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Meritor is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Opportunities for Meritor – External Strategic Factors
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Meritor 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.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Meritor . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Meritor to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- 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 Meritor in other product categories.
- 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 Meritor to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Meritor’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 Meritor to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Threats Meritor Facing - External Strategic Factors
- 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.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Meritor may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Meritor’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- 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.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Meritor in those markets.
- New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
- 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 Meritor
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 Meritor
- 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 Meritor
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 Meritor 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 Meritor
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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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)
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