Huntington Bancshares SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Huntington Bancshares is one of the leading companies in its industry. Huntington Bancshares maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis an immensenly 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

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

Step by Step Guide to Huntington Bancshares SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Huntington Bancshares – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Huntington Bancshares 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 Huntington Bancshares are –

• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• 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.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Huntington Bancshares 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Huntington Bancshares has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Huntington Bancshares just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• 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.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Huntington Bancshares has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Huntington Bancshares has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.

Weakness of Huntington Bancshares – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Huntington Bancshares 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 Huntington Bancshares are below the industry average.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Limited success outside core business – Even though Huntington Bancshares is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Huntington Bancshares is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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 Huntington Bancshares is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Huntington Bancshares has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• 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 Huntington Bancshares – External Strategic Factors

• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Huntington Bancshares . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Huntington Bancshares 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.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Huntington Bancshares to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Huntington Bancshares to increase its profitability.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Huntington Bancshares 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 Huntington Bancshares in other product categories.
• 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 Huntington Bancshares. 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 Huntington Bancshares to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Huntington Bancshares Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Huntington Bancshares’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Huntington Bancshares may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• 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.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• 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.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Huntington Bancshares
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Huntington Bancshares

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 Huntington Bancshares
• 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 Huntington Bancshares

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 Huntington Bancshares 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 Huntington Bancshares

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 Huntington Bancshares

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)