Curtiss-Wright (CW) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Curtiss-Wright (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Curtiss-Wright is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Curtiss-Wright can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Curtiss-Wright, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Curtiss-Wright operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Curtiss-Wright can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Curtiss-Wright
2. Improving business portfolio management of Curtiss-Wright
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Curtiss-Wright
Strengths of Curtiss-Wright | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Curtiss-Wright are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Curtiss-Wright in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Curtiss-Wright has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Curtiss-Wright to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Curtiss-Wright has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Curtiss-Wright has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Curtiss-Wright to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Curtiss-Wright to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Curtiss-Wright comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Curtiss-Wright is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Curtiss-Wright in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Curtiss-Wright in Misc. Fabricated Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Curtiss-Wright is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Curtiss-Wright a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Curtiss-Wright has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Curtiss-Wright have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Curtiss-Wright is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Curtiss-Wright
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Curtiss-Wright does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Curtiss-Wright is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Curtiss-Wright is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Curtiss-Wright emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Curtiss-Wright are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Curtiss-Wright | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Curtiss-Wright are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Curtiss-Wright supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Curtiss-Wright is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Curtiss-Wright vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Curtiss-Wright, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Curtiss-Wright is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Curtiss-Wright needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Curtiss-Wright is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Curtiss-Wright needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Curtiss-Wright to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Curtiss-Wright has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry over the last five years. Curtiss-Wright even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Curtiss-Wright needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Curtiss-Wright can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Curtiss-Wright is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Curtiss-Wright has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Curtiss-Wright products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Curtiss-Wright needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Curtiss-Wright ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Curtiss-Wright still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Curtiss-Wright has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Curtiss-Wright has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry using digital technology.
Curtiss-Wright Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Curtiss-Wright are -
Loyalty marketing
– Curtiss-Wright has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Curtiss-Wright to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Curtiss-Wright to increase its market reach. Curtiss-Wright will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Buying journey improvements
– Curtiss-Wright can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Curtiss-Wright in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Curtiss-Wright can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Curtiss-Wright can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Curtiss-Wright can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Curtiss-Wright has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Curtiss-Wright to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Curtiss-Wright to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Curtiss-Wright has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Curtiss-Wright to build a more holistic ecosystem for Curtiss-Wright products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Curtiss-Wright can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Fabricated Products industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Curtiss-Wright can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Curtiss-Wright can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Curtiss-Wright in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Curtiss-Wright can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Curtiss-Wright External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Curtiss-Wright are -
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Curtiss-Wright needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Curtiss-Wright can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Curtiss-Wright prominent markets.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Curtiss-Wright.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Curtiss-Wright high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Curtiss-Wright can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Curtiss-Wright will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Environmental challenges
– Curtiss-Wright needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Curtiss-Wright can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Curtiss-Wright may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Curtiss-Wright business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Curtiss-Wright
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Curtiss-Wright.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Fabricated Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Curtiss-Wright can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Curtiss-Wright Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Curtiss-Wright needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Curtiss-Wright is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Curtiss-Wright is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Curtiss-Wright to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Curtiss-Wright needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
