Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a handy technique to analyze the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust is facing in its current business environment.

The Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust is one of the leading companies in its industry. Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust maintains its prominent 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 company 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust to develop four types of strategies:

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

Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust are –

Read - Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
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 Free Cash Flow – Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Series 2013-1 Harvey 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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust 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.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
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.

Weakness of Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust – External Strategic Factors

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Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
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.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
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 Series 2013-1 Harvey 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust to increase its profitability.
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 Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust profitability.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Series 2013-1 Harvey Trust in those markets.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Series 2013-1 Harvey 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Series 2013-1 Harvey 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey 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 Series 2013-1 Harvey 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.

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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)