Order custom Harvard Business Case Study Analysis & Solution. Starting just $19
Fern Fort University
Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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) Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust is facing in its current business environment.
The Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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 firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
Order Now - Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust SWOT Analysis
Check out- Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust are –
Read - Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement
- 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.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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.
Weakness of Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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
- 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust are below the industry average.
- 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. Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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.
Opportunities for Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust – External Strategic Factors
Article continues after advertisement
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust in other product categories.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust to increase its profitability.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust.
Threats Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust Facing - External Strategic Factors
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- 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.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- 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.
- 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.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust’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.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
- 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust 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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
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 Interstar Millennium Series 2006-4H Trust
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
- Interstar Millennium Series 2006-3L Trust SWOT Analysis
- Interstar Millennium Series 2006-2G Trust SWOT Analysis
- Interstar Millennium Series 2005-2L Trust SWOT Analysis
- Interstar Millennium Series 2004-5 Trust SWOT Analysis
- Interstar Millennium Series 2004-2G Trust SWOT Analysis
Next 5 SWOT Analysis
- Ishares Asia 50 Etf SWOT Analysis
- Ishares China Large-Cap Etf SWOT Analysis
- Ishares Europe Etf SWOT Analysis
- Ishares Global 100 Etf SWOT Analysis
- Ishares Msci Bric Etf SWOT Analysis