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CEL-SCI Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by CEL-SCI Corporation managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is an important technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) CEL-SCI Corporation is facing in its current business environment.
The CEL-SCI Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. CEL-SCI Corporation maintains its prominent 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 enables the managers of the CEL-SCI 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 main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect CEL-SCI Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to CEL-SCI Corporation SWOT Analysis
Strengths of CEL-SCI Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading companies in its industry, CEL-SCI 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 CEL-SCI Corporation are –
Read - CEL-SCI Corporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
- 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.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Superb Performance in New Markets – CEL-SCI 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.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – CEL-SCI Corporation has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- 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.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to CEL-SCI Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – CEL-SCI Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Weakness of CEL-SCI Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where CEL-SCI 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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- 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.
- 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 CEL-SCI Corporation is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
- 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 CEL-SCI 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. CEL-SCI Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of CEL-SCI Corporation are below the industry average.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though CEL-SCI 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.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though CEL-SCI Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
Opportunities for CEL-SCI Corporation – External Strategic Factors
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- 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 CEL-SCI Corporation. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of CEL-SCI Corporation.
- 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 CEL-SCI Corporation in other product categories.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of CEL-SCI Corporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided CEL-SCI Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- 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 CEL-SCI Corporation to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to CEL-SCI 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.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of CEL-SCI 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 CEL-SCI Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Liability laws in different countries are different and CEL-SCI Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to CEL-SCI Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for CEL-SCI Corporation in those markets.
- New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
- 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.
- 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.
- Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for CEL-SCI 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 CEL-SCI 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 CEL-SCI 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 CEL-SCI 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 CEL-SCI 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
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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)
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