Churchill Downs Incorporated SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Churchill Downs Incorporated is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Churchill Downs Incorporated maintains its prominent 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


Order Now - Churchill Downs Incorporated SWOT Analysis
Check out- Churchill Downs Incorporated PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement


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 Churchill Downs Incorporated 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Churchill Downs Incorporated strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Churchill Downs Incorporated SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Churchill Downs Incorporated – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Churchill Downs Incorporated has numerous strengths that help 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 Churchill Downs Incorporated are –

Read - Churchill Downs Incorporated Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

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

---

Weakness of Churchill Downs Incorporated – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Churchill Downs Incorporated 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.

Article continues after advertisement

• 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.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Churchill Downs Incorporated are below the industry average.
• 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.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• 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. Churchill Downs Incorporated has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Churchill Downs Incorporated is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for Churchill Downs Incorporated – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Churchill Downs Incorporated . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Churchill Downs Incorporated 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 Churchill Downs Incorporated 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 Churchill Downs Incorporated in other product categories.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Churchill Downs Incorporated 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.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Churchill Downs Incorporated 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.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Churchill Downs Incorporated an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Churchill Downs Incorporated Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Churchill Downs Incorporated   in those markets.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• 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.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Churchill Downs Incorporated may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards 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.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• 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 Churchill Downs Incorporated

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 Churchill Downs Incorporated
• 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Churchill Downs Incorporated

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 Churchill Downs Incorporated 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 Churchill Downs Incorporated

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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Churchill Downs Incorporated

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)