Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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

The Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. maintains its dominant 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 firm 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Vitamin Shoppe, 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. are –

Read - Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Superb Performance in New Markets – Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. 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 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.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Vitamin Shoppe, 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. 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.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.

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Weakness of Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Vitamin Shoppe, 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.

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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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
• 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. Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
• 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. 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.
• 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc.

Opportunities for Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. – External Strategic Factors

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• Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Vitamin Shoppe, 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• 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.
• 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. 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 Vitamin Shoppe, Inc..

Threats Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. profitability.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Vitamin Shoppe, Inc.
• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Vitamin Shoppe, Inc.   in those markets.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• 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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Vitamin Shoppe, 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 Vitamin Shoppe, 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Vitamin Shoppe, 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 Vitamin Shoppe, 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 Vitamin Shoppe, 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.

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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)