Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK)
Capital One, a credit card company, has built its business on a strategy with a clear customer focus: The company systematically gathers and analyses information on its customers in order to correctly assess their individual credit risk and to offer products and services tailored to their individual needs. The case is designed to illustrate how the concept of customer relationship management (CRM) can be translated into strategy, organizational design, hiring, marketing processes, and IT infrastructure of a company.
Swot Analysis of "Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK)" written by Werner Reinartz, Wieh Ulrike includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Credit Customer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Data, Financial management, IT and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Credit Customer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Credit Customer operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Credit Customer
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Credit Customer
Strengths Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Credit Customer in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Credit Customer in the sector have low bargaining power. Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Credit Customer to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Credit Customer is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Credit Customer is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Credit Customer has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Credit Customer is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Credit Customer in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Credit Customer are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Credit Customer
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Credit Customer does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Credit Customer is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Credit Customer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Credit Customer is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Credit Customer in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Credit Customer has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Credit Customer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Credit Customer has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Weaknesses Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Credit Customer, firm in the HBR case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Credit Customer has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Credit Customer has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) HBR case study mentions - Credit Customer takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Credit Customer products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Credit Customer needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK), in the dynamic environment Credit Customer has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Credit Customer has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK), it seems that the employees of Credit Customer don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Need for greater diversity
– Credit Customer has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Credit Customer is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Credit Customer is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Credit Customer needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Credit Customer to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Credit Customer can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Credit Customer operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Credit Customer can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Credit Customer can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Credit Customer to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Credit Customer can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Credit Customer in the consumer business. Now Credit Customer can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Credit Customer to increase its market reach. Credit Customer will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Credit Customer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Credit Customer is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Credit Customer can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Loyalty marketing
– Credit Customer has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Credit Customer can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Credit Customer to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Credit Customer to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Credit Customer high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK), Credit Customer may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Credit Customer with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Credit Customer
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Credit Customer.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Credit Customer in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Credit Customer.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Credit Customer is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Credit Customer will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Credit Customer demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Credit Customer in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Credit Customer can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Customer Relationship Management at Capital One (UK) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Credit Customer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
