Seacor Holdings Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Seacor Holdings Inc. 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) Seacor Holdings Inc. is facing in its current business environment.

The Seacor Holdings Inc. is one of the leading firms in its industry. Seacor Holdings Inc. 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 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Seacor Holdings Inc. to develop four types of strategies:

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

Seacor Holdings Inc. swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Seacor Holdings Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Seacor Holdings Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Seacor Holdings Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Seacor Holdings Inc. 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 Seacor Holdings Inc. are –

Read - Seacor Holdings Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Seacor Holdings Inc. 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.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Seacor Holdings Inc. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
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.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Seacor Holdings Inc. 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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Seacor Holdings Inc. 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.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Seacor Holdings Inc. has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Seacor Holdings Inc. just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

Weakness of Seacor Holdings Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Seacor Holdings Inc. 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.
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. Seacor Holdings Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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 Seacor Holdings Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Seacor Holdings Inc. are below the industry average.
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 Seacor Holdings Inc.
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.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Seacor Holdings Inc. 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.

Opportunities for Seacor Holdings Inc. – External Strategic Factors

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Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Seacor Holdings Inc. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Seacor Holdings Inc.’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 Seacor Holdings Inc. in other product categories.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Seacor Holdings Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Seacor Holdings Inc. to increase its profitability.
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 Seacor Holdings Inc. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Seacor Holdings Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Seacor Holdings Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
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.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
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 Seacor Holdings Inc. profitability.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Seacor Holdings Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Seacor Holdings Inc.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Seacor Holdings Inc.

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 Seacor Holdings Inc.
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 Seacor Holdings Inc.

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 Seacor Holdings Inc. 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 Seacor Holdings Inc.

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

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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)