United Community Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by United Community Financial Corp. managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is a useful technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) United Community Financial Corp. is facing in its current business environment.

The United Community Financial Corp. is one of the leading companies in its industry. United Community Financial Corp. 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the United Community Financial Corp. 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 use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect United Community Financial Corp. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to United Community Financial Corp. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of United Community Financial Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, United Community Financial Corp. 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 United Community Financial Corp. are –

Read - United Community Financial Corp. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to United Community Financial Corp. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. United Community Financial Corp. 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.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years United Community Financial Corp. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of United Community Financial Corp. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years United Community Financial Corp. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – United Community Financial Corp. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• 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.

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Weakness of United Community Financial Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where United Community Financial Corp. 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 highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though United Community Financial Corp. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• 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. United Community Financial Corp. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• 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.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry United Community Financial Corp. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, United Community Financial Corp. 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.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• 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 United Community Financial Corp.

Opportunities for United Community Financial Corp. – External Strategic Factors

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• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of United Community Financial Corp..
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of United Community Financial Corp.’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.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of United Community Financial Corp. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for United Community Financial Corp. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as United Community Financial Corp. to increase its profitability.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to United Community Financial Corp. 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.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable United Community Financial Corp. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• 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 United Community Financial Corp. in other product categories.

Threats United Community Financial Corp. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards 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.
• 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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and United Community Financial Corp. 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.
• New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for United Community Financial Corp.

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 United Community Financial Corp.
• 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 United Community Financial Corp.

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 United Community Financial Corp. 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 United Community Financial Corp.

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)