Zions Bancorporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Zions Bancorporation is one of the leading firms in its industry. Zions Bancorporation maintains its dominant position in market by critically 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Zions Bancorporation 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Zions Bancorporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Zions Bancorporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Zions Bancorporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Zions 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 Zions Bancorporation are –

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• 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.
• 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 Zions Bancorporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• 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.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Zions Bancorporation 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Zions Bancorporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Zions Bancorporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Zions Bancorporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.

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Weakness of Zions Bancorporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Zions 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.

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• Limited success outside core business – Even though Zions Bancorporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Zions Bancorporation are below the industry average.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Zions Bancorporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Zions 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.
• 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 Zions Bancorporation – External Strategic Factors

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• 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.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Zions Bancorporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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 Zions Bancorporation to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Zions Bancorporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Zions 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.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Zions Bancorporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Zions Bancorporation.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Zions Bancorporation 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.

Threats Zions Bancorporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Zions Bancorporation
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Zions Bancorporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Zions Bancorporation profitability.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Zions 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 Zions 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zions 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 Zions 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 Zions 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.

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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)