United States Cellular Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by United States Cellular Corporation managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is a handy technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) United States Cellular Corporation is facing in its current business environment.

The United States Cellular Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. United States Cellular Corporation maintains its dominant position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company 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 helps the managers of the United States Cellular Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

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

United States Cellular Corporation swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect United States Cellular Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to United States Cellular Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of United States Cellular Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, United States Cellular 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 United States Cellular Corporation are –

Read - United States Cellular Corporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Strong distribution network – Over the years United States Cellular Corporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Superb Performance in New Markets – United States Cellular Corporation 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.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to United States Cellular Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years United States Cellular Corporation has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of United States Cellular Corporation just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.

Weakness of United States Cellular Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where United States Cellular 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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Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though United States Cellular Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, United States Cellular Corporation 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.
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.
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 United States Cellular Corporation
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. United States Cellular Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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.

Opportunities for United States Cellular Corporation – 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 United States Cellular Corporation in other product categories.
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 United States Cellular Corporation. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the United States Cellular Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of United States Cellular 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.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided United States Cellular Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable United States Cellular Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of United States Cellular Corporation 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 United States Cellular Corporation to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats United States Cellular Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to United States Cellular Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those 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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the United States Cellular Corporation profitability.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for United States Cellular 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 United States Cellular 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 United States Cellular 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 United States Cellular 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 United States Cellular 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

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)