Comerica Incorporated SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Comerica Incorporated is one of the leading firms in its industry. Comerica Incorporated 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 firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Comerica Incorporated to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Comerica Incorporated swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Comerica Incorporated strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Comerica Incorporated SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Comerica Incorporated – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Comerica Incorporated has numerous strengths that help 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 Comerica Incorporated are –

Read - Comerica Incorporated Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Comerica Incorporated 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.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Comerica Incorporated is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Comerica Incorporated has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Comerica Incorporated 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.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Comerica Incorporated has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
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 Comerica Incorporated – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Comerica Incorporated 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.

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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.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Comerica Incorporated are below the industry average.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Comerica Incorporated is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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. Comerica Incorporated has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Comerica Incorporated 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.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Comerica Incorporated has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.

Opportunities for Comerica Incorporated – External Strategic Factors

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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 Comerica Incorporated in other product categories.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Comerica Incorporated products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Comerica Incorporated to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
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 Comerica Incorporated to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
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 Comerica Incorporated 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.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Comerica Incorporated.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Comerica Incorporated to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats Comerica Incorporated Facing - External Strategic Factors

Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Comerica Incorporated in those markets.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Comerica Incorporated may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies 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.
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.
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 raw material can pose a threat to the Comerica Incorporated profitability.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Comerica Incorporated

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 Comerica Incorporated
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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Comerica Incorporated

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 Comerica Incorporated 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 Comerica Incorporated

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)