First Citizens BancShares, Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The First Citizens BancShares, Inc. is one of the leading companies in its industry. First Citizens BancShares, Inc. maintains its dominant position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis a highly 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 enables 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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 firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect First Citizens BancShares, Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to First Citizens BancShares, Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of First Citizens BancShares, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. are –

Read - First Citizens BancShares, Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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.

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Weakness of First Citizens BancShares, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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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• 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.
• 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though First Citizens BancShares, Inc. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry First Citizens BancShares, Inc. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• 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. First Citizens BancShares, Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of First Citizens BancShares, Inc.
• 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. – External Strategic Factors

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• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as First Citizens BancShares, Inc. to increase its profitability.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable First Citizens BancShares, Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc..
• 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for First Citizens BancShares, Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of First Citizens BancShares, Inc. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.

Threats First Citizens BancShares, Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for First Citizens BancShares, Inc.   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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and First Citizens BancShares, Inc. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of First Citizens BancShares, Inc.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the First Citizens BancShares, Inc. profitability.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for First Citizens BancShares, Inc.

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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc.
• 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc.

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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 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 First Citizens BancShares, Inc.

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)