Wolverine World Wide SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Wolverine World Wide 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) Wolverine World Wide is facing in its current business environment.

The Wolverine World Wide is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Wolverine World Wide 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 organization 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 enables the managers of the Wolverine World Wide 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 use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Wolverine World Wide strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Wolverine World Wide SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Wolverine World Wide – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Wolverine World Wide 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 Wolverine World Wide are –

• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Wolverine World Wide has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• 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.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• 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 Wolverine World Wide 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 skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Wolverine World Wide 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.

Weakness of Wolverine World Wide – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Wolverine World Wide 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.

• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Wolverine World Wide 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 Wolverine World Wide 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 Wolverine World Wide is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• 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. Wolverine World Wide has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
• 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 profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Wolverine World Wide are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Wolverine World Wide – External Strategic Factors

• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Wolverine World Wide to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Wolverine World Wide 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 Wolverine World Wide to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• 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 Wolverine World Wide in other product categories.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Wolverine World Wide’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.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Wolverine World Wide products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Wolverine World Wide an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Wolverine World Wide . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats Wolverine World Wide 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.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• 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.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Wolverine World Wide may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Wolverine World Wide

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 Wolverine World Wide
• 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 Wolverine World Wide

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 Wolverine World Wide 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 Wolverine World Wide

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)