SWOT analysis is a model that scans a company’s internal and external environments based on its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This essay is a SWOT analysis of the ice cream company, Ben and Jerry’s. Ben and Jerry’s company’s major strengths include having a well established brand. Since 2000, the company has continually improved its brands from Smooth and No Chunks to brands such as Chunky Monkey, Phish Food and Cherry Garcia. This led to one of their ice cream flavors, Chunky Monkey being named among the top ten best in London. They also keep in touch with their customer’s preferences and as a result have a wide variety of flavors of ice cream for the customer to choose from. Their role in social awareness and responsibility and environmentalism gives them a good social and public reputation. This is for example the fact that they do not use bleached containers for packaging. They also have a good environmental conservation strategy which they integrate well with their corporate strategies giving them a competitive advantage. In 2007 for the example, the company’s founders were asked to talk about alternative energy and clean technology at the Ernst and Young national entrepreneur of the year awards. Ben and Jerry Company have managed to retain their role in social responsibility even after being bought by Unilever in 2000. They also have a good market share in a market that has only two major players.The Company is facing a declining market share. In 2000, it had about 42% market share which was equal to its competitor’s Haagen-Dazs. This has however declined to 36% with that of the competitor increasing to 44%. Their target market is also limited due to their product being niche. The company lacks professionalism in management for instance; in 2006 the company’s former CFO was charged and convicted with misappropriating funds. The company’s concentration on many social responsible could also lead to them neglecting changing trends in the market. Their suppliers also have high bargaining power due to the company’s specificity of orders. This subjects them to price fluctuations from the suppliers.Some of the opportunities that the company has include offering healthy products like fat-free ice cream and frozen yoghurt products. Acquisition of Best foods and Slim-fast will open up the company to the European market where weight management is a key trend. Another opportunity is the rising demand for premium ice cream in areas like Asia and the existing potential South America market which they are yet to capitalize on.Competitors are a major threat to this company. These are for example Nestle and Dean Foods. Much of the market market’s preferences also seem to be changing in a bid to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Consumers are paying attention to high fat products. The economy is also currently unpredictable. Demand on products like milk seems to be on the rise while supply is low thus raising the prices.
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