Brown-Forman Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Brown-Forman Corporation is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Brown-Forman Corporation 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 organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

Order Now - Brown-Forman Corporation SWOT Analysis
Check out- Brown-Forman Corporation 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Brown-Forman Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

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

Brown-Forman Corporation swot analysis / matrix

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 Brown-Forman Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Brown-Forman Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Brown-Forman Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Brown-Forman 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 Brown-Forman Corporation are –

Read - Brown-Forman Corporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Brown-Forman 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 – Brown-Forman Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Brown-Forman Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Brown-Forman 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.
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.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.

Weakness of Brown-Forman Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Brown-Forman 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.

Article continues after advertisement

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 Brown-Forman Corporation 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 Brown-Forman Corporation 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.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Brown-Forman 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.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Brown-Forman 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.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Brown-Forman Corporation has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Brown-Forman Corporation are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Brown-Forman Corporation – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

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 environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for Brown-Forman Corporation to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Brown-Forman Corporation to increase its profitability.
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 Brown-Forman Corporation in other product categories.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Brown-Forman Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Brown-Forman Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Brown-Forman Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Brown-Forman 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.

Threats Brown-Forman Corporation 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 Brown-Forman Corporation
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Brown-Forman Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Brown-Forman Corporation in those markets.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Brown-Forman Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Brown-Forman 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 Brown-Forman 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.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brown-Forman 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 Brown-Forman 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 Brown-Forman 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.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brown-Forman Corporation

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)