Woodward SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Woodward is one of the leading firms in its industry. Woodward 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Woodward 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 use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Woodward strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Woodward SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Woodward – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Woodward 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 Woodward are –

Superb Performance in New Markets – Woodward 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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Woodward 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 Woodward has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Woodward just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Woodward has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Woodward is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
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 successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

Weakness of Woodward – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Woodward can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company 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, Woodward 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 Woodward is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Woodward is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Woodward is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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 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. Woodward has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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.

Opportunities for Woodward – External Strategic Factors

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.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Woodward 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 Woodward’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 Woodward to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Woodward products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Woodward.
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 Woodward 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 Woodward to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Woodward Facing - External Strategic Factors

Liability laws in different countries are different and Woodward 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 Woodward’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income 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.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Woodward
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 .
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Woodward

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 Woodward
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 Woodward

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 Woodward 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 Woodward

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 Woodward

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)