The official internal analysis is broken into two parts: strengths and weaknesses and they are as follows: Our strengths are as follows: according to an article written by Matt Thurber in the August edition of AIN online news release, Bell Helicopter was ranked #1 in product support by Aviation International News’ 2011 Product Support Survey for the sixth consecutive year. We have three locations, two in the U.S. and one in Canada; we are growing an estimated 10% per year. We are looking at expanding into Europe and Singapore as well according to our last press release in the bellhelicopter.com webpage. We currently have over 7,500 employees providing service to over 120 countries flying Bell aircraft worldwide as last stated in helis.com news release. We have sell over 180 aircraft annually second only to Robinson Aircraft whose sales are merely entry level low capacity/low altitude aircraft according to a Helicopter Annual report on helicopterannual.org
Our weaknesses as of this moment are we currently do not have any fixed wing sales or support divisions. And being solely dependent on rotary wing aircraft we often get overlooked by those who are in need of aircraft to perform ferry duties out of a fear of helicopters in general. The constant media reminders of our aircraft crashing or being shot down in Iraq and Afghanistan also have hurt sales.
Long term goals are to establish a centralized facility capable of supporting several countries in the South American region. We are looking to provide the vast majority of all rotary wing aircraft and support to the region. Once we establish ourselves in that market we will be able to continue to grow and eventually secure the rights to build our aircraft in country near the site further lowering operating cost.
Short term goals are to contact the U.S. Embassy to ensure we are not violating any local or regional laws. Then we’ll have to purchase