Swot Analysis for Boeing

1. THE BOEING COMPANY

The Boeing Company was founded by Bill Boeing, a wealthy lumberman from Washington State, on the West Coast of the U.S. The first plane was used to take him on fishing trips to remote areas of Canada. In 1916, he set up an airplane factory in Seatle, Washington, a city which now depends on the aircraft industry. Fascinated with the technology of flying, Bill Boeing, when he founded the company, promised "to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us by."

During World War II, the Boeing Company established its reputation as a supplier of military aircraft. After the war, in the early fifties, Boeing made the first passenger jet, which soon replaced all of the propeller-driven aircraft in the passenger market. It has also built a number of spacecraft used in the U.S. space program. Over the years, the company has developed a strong reputation for reliable products and the service of those products. It has been number one in world-wide sales for years, controlling over 50 percent of the market for commercial aircraft.

Aerospace products are the number one U.S. export after agricultural products. The country has a long and proud tradition of dominating the industry with technological breakthroughs leading to superior products. But this dominance is now being challenged. Airbus, a France-based European company, has bumped McDonnell Douglas into the third spot in the industry, and it threatens to step up the competition. Boeing executives argue that they cannot compete against the deep pockets of the four European governments that subsidize Airbus. The continuing decline of the U.S. lead in aerospace has sparked an intense debate in the United States on the whole issue of the proper relationship between government and industry.

Traditionally, the United States has maintained a free-market philosophy, which holds that government should not regulate market forces. In this view, better and more efficient production occurs when world markets are open, allowing the forces of competition to work freely. According to Boeing and other executives, this philosophy has been the backbone of American industrial power from the beginning. For the health of the civil aviation industry, the free-trade argument goes, the United States must convince the EC to stop subsidizing Airbus.

However, there is less agreement than there used to be on the issue of government's role in industry and trade. Some U.S. officials and academics point out that the free-market philosophy no longer suits global economic conditions. Advocates of this emerging view urge the development of a strong industrial policy that would develop and support important U.S. industries. Such a policy could work through such protective measures as tariffs, import quotas or direct subsidies to industry, and through policies that encourage research in certain high-tech industries. According