Century Bancorp, Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Century Bancorp, Inc. 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) Century Bancorp, Inc. is facing in its current business environment.

The Century Bancorp, Inc. is one of the leading firms in its industry. Century Bancorp, Inc. maintains its prominent 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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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 enables the managers of the Century Bancorp, 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Century Bancorp, Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Century Bancorp, Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Century Bancorp, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Century Bancorp, 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 Century Bancorp, Inc. are –

Read - Century Bancorp, Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Century Bancorp, Inc. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Century Bancorp, Inc. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Century Bancorp, Inc. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Century Bancorp, Inc. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Century Bancorp, 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.
• 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 distribution network – Over the years Century Bancorp, Inc. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Century Bancorp, Inc. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Century Bancorp, 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 Century Bancorp, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Century Bancorp, Inc. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Century Bancorp, Inc. 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.
• 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.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Century Bancorp, Inc. is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Century Bancorp, Inc. 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.
• 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 Century Bancorp, Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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. Century Bancorp, Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.

Opportunities for Century Bancorp, Inc. – External Strategic Factors

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

Threats Century Bancorp, Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Century Bancorp, Inc.   in those markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Century Bancorp, Inc. profitability.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Century Bancorp, Inc. 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.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Century Bancorp, Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Century Bancorp, 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 Century Bancorp, 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 Century Bancorp, 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 Century Bancorp, 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 Century Bancorp, 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)