Swift Transportation Company SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Swift Transportation Company managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is an important technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Swift Transportation Company is facing in its current business environment.

The Swift Transportation Company is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Swift Transportation Company 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 firm 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 Swift Transportation Company to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Swift Transportation Company swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Swift Transportation Company strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Swift Transportation Company SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Swift Transportation Company – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Swift Transportation Company 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 Swift Transportation Company are –

Read - Swift Transportation Company Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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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.
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. Swift Transportation Company 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 distribution network – Over the years Swift Transportation Company has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Swift Transportation Company is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Swift Transportation Company has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

Weakness of Swift Transportation Company – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Swift Transportation Company 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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The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Swift Transportation Company are below the industry average.
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 Swift Transportation Company is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Swift Transportation Company is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Swift Transportation Company 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.
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 Swift Transportation Company
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Swift Transportation Company 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 Swift Transportation Company – External Strategic Factors

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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 Swift Transportation Company in other product categories.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Swift Transportation Company to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Swift Transportation Company to increase its profitability.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Swift Transportation Company.
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 Swift Transportation Company to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Swift Transportation Company an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Swift Transportation Company 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 Swift Transportation Company to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats Swift Transportation Company Facing - External Strategic Factors

The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Swift Transportation Company profitability.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Swift Transportation Company may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Swift Transportation Company

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 Swift Transportation Company
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 Swift Transportation Company

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 Swift Transportation Company 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 Swift Transportation Company

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

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)