Marine Products Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Marine Products Corporation is one of the leading companies in its industry. Marine Products Corporation maintains its dominant 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 firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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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 called SWOT Matrix.

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

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

Marine Products Corporation swot analysis / matrix

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 Marine Products Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Marine Products Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Marine Products Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Marine Products Corporation 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 Marine Products Corporation are –

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

Weakness of Marine Products Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Marine Products Corporation 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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Limited success outside core business – Even though Marine Products Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
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.
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 Marine Products Corporation
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 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. Marine Products Corporation has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Marine Products 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.

Opportunities for Marine Products Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Marine Products 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.
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 Marine Products Corporation in other product categories.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Marine Products Corporation 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 Marine Products 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 Marine Products Corporation to increase its profitability.
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 Marine Products 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.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Marine Products Corporation 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.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Marine Products Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats Marine Products Corporation Facing - External Strategic Factors

Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
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.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Marine Products Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
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 Marine Products Corporation’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Marine Products 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 Marine Products 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 Marine Products 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 Marine Products 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 Marine Products 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)