BB&T Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The BB&T Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. BB&T Corporation 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the BB&T Corporation 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 an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect BB&T Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to BB&T Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of BB&T Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, BB&T Corporation 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 BB&T Corporation are –

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Superb Performance in New Markets – BB&T Corporation 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.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
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.
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.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Strong Free Cash Flow – BB&T Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to BB&T Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of BB&T Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where BB&T Corporation 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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The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of BB&T Corporation are below the industry average.
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. BB&T Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry BB&T Corporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though BB&T Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though BB&T Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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 BB&T Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the BB&T Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable BB&T Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as BB&T Corporation to increase its profitability.
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.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for BB&T Corporation to capture new customers and increase its market share.
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 BB&T Corporation in other product categories.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of BB&T Corporation.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of BB&T Corporation’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.

Threats BB&T Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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 BB&T Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
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.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for BB&T Corporation in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for BB&T Corporation

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 BB&T Corporation
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 BB&T Corporation

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 BB&T Corporation 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 BB&T Corporation

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

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)