Citizens First Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Citizens First 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) Citizens First Corporation is facing in its current business environment.

The Citizens First Corporation is one of the leading firms in its industry. Citizens First Corporation maintains its dominant position in market by critically 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 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 Citizens First 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 a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Citizens First Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Citizens First Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Citizens First Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Citizens First 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 Citizens First Corporation are –

Read - Citizens First Corporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Superb Performance in New Markets – Citizens First 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.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Citizens First Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• 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.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Citizens First Corporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Citizens First Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Citizens First Corporation 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 Citizens First Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Citizens First Corporation can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• 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 Citizens First Corporation is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Citizens First Corporation 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.
• 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 Citizens First Corporation
• 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. Citizens First Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Citizens First Corporation are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Citizens First Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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• The new technology provides an opportunity to Citizens First Corporation 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.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Citizens First Corporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Citizens First Corporation.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Citizens First Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Citizens First 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 Citizens First Corporation 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.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Citizens First Corporation to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats Citizens First Corporation 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.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Citizens First Corporation profitability.
• 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.
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
• 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 Citizens First Corporation   in those markets.
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Citizens First 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 Citizens First 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 Citizens First 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 Citizens First 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 Citizens First 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)