LCI Industries SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The LCI Industries is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. LCI Industries maintains its prominent 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 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 LCI Industries 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 an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect LCI Industries strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to LCI Industries SWOT Analysis

Strengths of LCI Industries – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, LCI Industries 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 LCI Industries are –

Read - LCI Industries Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – LCI Industries is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years LCI Industries has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of LCI Industries just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
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.
Strong distribution network – Over the years LCI Industries has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to LCI Industries products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
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.

Weakness of LCI Industries – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where LCI Industries can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization 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 LCI Industries is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
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. LCI Industries has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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, LCI Industries 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.
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.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though LCI Industries 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.
Limited success outside core business – Even though LCI Industries is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.

Opportunities for LCI Industries – External Strategic Factors

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Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of LCI Industries.
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 LCI Industries. 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 environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for LCI Industries to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable LCI Industries to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
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.
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 LCI Industries in other product categories.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for LCI Industries to capture new customers and increase its market share.
The new technology provides an opportunity to LCI Industries 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.

Threats LCI Industries Facing - External Strategic Factors

The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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 LCI Industries profitability.
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 LCI Industries’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for LCI Industries

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 LCI Industries
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 LCI Industries

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 LCI Industries 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 LCI Industries

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)