Swot Analysis of Carnival Cruiselines

Strategic management is important to the success and expansion in most businesses. What is Strategic management? It is the art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives (slide 1-4, chapter one of The Nature of Strategic management). Why would this information be vital to Carnival Cruise? The annual revenue for just the U.S economy was 37.85 billion dollars and the annual increase for the company is 7.4% (Cruise Ship Industry Statistics). That is a huge profit margin and is vital reason why the cruise industry takes strategic management so seriously. Strategic management also helps companies figure out how to create better and more profitable business strategic plans. This helps Carnival Cruise make tough decisions biased among many decisions. Let’s start with Strategy formulation. It starts with the company having a vision and mission statement. It also helps identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) (slide 1-8, chapter one of The Nature of Strategic management). Why does a successful company need this? It helps determine what ventures to leave behind or enter. It helps reduce wasting resources and helps improve how companies operate. It also can prevent hostile takeovers and guide paths in international markets or expanded operations to diversify. Strategy implementation also called the action stage going to help Carnival develop annual objectives, policies, motivation tactics, and allocate resources (slide 1-10, chapter one of The Nature of Strategic management). Strategy implementation is very important stage. Only 19.9% of the U.S. population has taken a cruise and of that 19.9% the average age of a passenger is 50+ years old (Cruise Ship Industry Statistics). To maintain a high profit margin a company needs to find ways to save on expanses and entice new customers. It is especially important in today’s economy because