Canterbury Park Holding Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Canterbury Park Holding Corporation is one of the leading firms in its industry. Canterbury Park Holding Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis an immensenly 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

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

Step by Step Guide to Canterbury Park Holding Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Canterbury Park Holding Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Canterbury Park Holding Corporation 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 Canterbury Park Holding Corporation are –

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• 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 skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Canterbury Park Holding Corporation 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Canterbury Park Holding Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Canterbury Park Holding Corporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• 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 developing new products – product innovation.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Canterbury Park Holding Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• 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 Canterbury Park Holding Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Canterbury Park Holding 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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• 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 Canterbury Park Holding Corporation
• 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.
• 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 Canterbury Park Holding Corporation is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Canterbury Park Holding 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 Canterbury Park Holding Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• 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.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Canterbury Park Holding Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for Canterbury Park Holding Corporation – 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 Canterbury Park Holding Corporation.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Canterbury Park Holding Corporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• 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.
• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Canterbury Park Holding 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.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Canterbury Park Holding Corporation to increase its profitability.
• 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 Canterbury Park Holding 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 Canterbury Park Holding 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.
• Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Canterbury Park Holding Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Canterbury Park Holding Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• 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.
• Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Canterbury Park Holding Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• 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.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Canterbury Park Holding Corporation   in those markets.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Canterbury Park Holding 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 Canterbury Park Holding 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 Canterbury Park Holding 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 Canterbury Park Holding 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 Canterbury Park Holding 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)