Major Competitors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Major Competitors - Essay Example Smith & White maintains several strengths as a multi-national company. First, the business has a well-diversified product line including professional and consumer products which provide for higher sales revenue from multiple, international consumers. The company’s brand strategy is also a significant strength due to the unified brand messages which gives S&W dominant market share globally. The company further has already established brand equity, which means that customers recognize the company brand names and many prefer them. This gives the company powerful marketing edge. S&W products also have a quality reputation in the retail sales environment as Big Box retailers stock its products which give them more selling exposure. Weaknesses at S&W include financial issues such as costs associated with high labor in areas where old manufacturing plants are still being utilized. There is also market confusion regarding consumer and professional products, meaning that the two categories of products are not being distinguished or differentiated properly. Distributors also create weaknesses because the ones which S&W uses have a dominant position in the supply chain and take advantage of this position. The company’s sheer size, also, creates weaknesses for the company as it is not able to respond quickly enough or efficiently enough when rapid changes are occurring in the market. The cordless market is also growing quickly, however S&W does not have a very big market presence in the cordless product area, making this another weakness at the company. There are many opportunities for S&W, the first of which is to begin focusing areas of the business on the development of cordless professional and consumer products to gain a larger presence and earn higher revenues there. Secondly, S&W maintains opportunities to develop an appropriate rapid change training and development seminar to allow staff