Western Alliance Bancorporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

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

Order Now - Western Alliance Bancorporation SWOT Analysis
Check out- Western Alliance Bancorporation PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

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 helps the managers of the Western Alliance Bancorporation to develop four types of strategies:

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

Western Alliance Bancorporation swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Western Alliance Bancorporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Western Alliance Bancorporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Western Alliance Bancorporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Western Alliance Bancorporation 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 Western Alliance Bancorporation are –

Read - Western Alliance Bancorporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Western Alliance Bancorporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years Western Alliance Bancorporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Western Alliance Bancorporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Western Alliance Bancorporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Western Alliance Bancorporation 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 Western Alliance Bancorporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Western Alliance Bancorporation 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Western Alliance Bancorporation 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. Western Alliance Bancorporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Western Alliance Bancorporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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.
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 Western Alliance Bancorporation
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 Western Alliance Bancorporation – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

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 Western Alliance Bancorporation 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.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Western Alliance Bancorporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Western Alliance Bancorporation’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.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Western Alliance Bancorporation to increase its profitability.
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 Western Alliance Bancorporation. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Western Alliance Bancorporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Western Alliance Bancorporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats Western Alliance Bancorporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Western Alliance Bancorporation
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Western Alliance Bancorporation profitability.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
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.
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 technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Western Alliance Bancorporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Western Alliance Bancorporation

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 Western Alliance Bancorporation
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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Western Alliance Bancorporation

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 Western Alliance Bancorporation 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 Western Alliance Bancorporation

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 Western Alliance Bancorporation

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)