Order custom Harvard Business Case Study Analysis & Solution. Starting just $19
Fern Fort University
Safe Bulkers, Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Safe Bulkers, Inc. managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a useful technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Safe Bulkers, Inc. is facing in its current business environment.
The Safe Bulkers, Inc. is one of the leading firms in its industry. Safe Bulkers, Inc. maintains its dominant 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
Order Now - Safe Bulkers, Inc. SWOT Analysis
Check out- Safe Bulkers, Inc. PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
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 called SWOT Matrix.
The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Safe Bulkers, Inc. 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Safe Bulkers, Inc. SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Safe Bulkers, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Safe Bulkers, Inc. 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc. are –
Read - Safe Bulkers, Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Safe Bulkers, Inc. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Safe Bulkers, Inc. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Safe Bulkers, Inc. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Safe Bulkers, Inc. 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Weakness of Safe Bulkers, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Safe Bulkers, Inc. 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
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Safe Bulkers, Inc. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Safe Bulkers, Inc. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work 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.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Safe Bulkers, Inc. are below the industry average.
- Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Safe Bulkers, Inc. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
- 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Opportunities for Safe Bulkers, Inc. – External Strategic Factors
Article continues after advertisement
- 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc. in other product categories.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Safe Bulkers, Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Safe Bulkers, Inc.’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.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Safe Bulkers, Inc. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Safe Bulkers, Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Safe Bulkers, Inc. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to Safe Bulkers, Inc. 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Threats Safe Bulkers, Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Safe Bulkers, Inc.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Safe Bulkers, Inc. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Safe Bulkers, Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Safe Bulkers, Inc. profitability.
- 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.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Safe Bulkers, Inc. in those markets.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Safe Bulkers, Inc.
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 Safe Bulkers, Inc.
- 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc.
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 Safe Bulkers, Inc. 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 Safe Bulkers, Inc.
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 Safe Bulkers, Inc.
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)
Order Now
Previous 5 SWOT Analysis
- Spirit Airlines, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Diversified Restaurant Holdings, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Scorpio Bulkers Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Salem Media Group, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Saia, Inc. SWOT Analysis
Next 5 SWOT Analysis
- Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. SWOT Analysis
- Star Bulk Carriers Corp. SWOT Analysis
- Starbucks Corporation SWOT Analysis
- Scholastic Corporation SWOT Analysis
HBR Case Studies Solutions
- The Path to Prescription: Closing the Gap Between the Promise and the Reality of Big Data case study solution
- Cyberpreneur's Wake-up Call: Cyber Security and Millennial Talent Crises case study solution
- Cause-Related Marketing: More Buck than Bang? case study solution
- Caesars Entertainment case study solution
- Air Canada: Flying High with Information Technology case study solution