Container India (CCRI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Railroads
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Container India (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Container India is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Container India can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Container India, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Container India 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 Container India can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Container India
2. Improving business portfolio management of Container India
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Railroads sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Container India
Strengths of Container India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Container India are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Container India has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Railroads industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Container India have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Container India is one of the most innovative firm in Railroads sector.
Learning organization
- Container India 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 Container India is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Container India emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Railroads
– Container India is one of the leading players in the Railroads industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Railroads industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Container India in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Railroads industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Container India digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Container India has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Diverse revenue streams
– Container India is present in almost all the verticals within the Railroads industry. This has provided Container India a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Container India 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.
Analytics focus
– Container India is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Railroads industry. The technology infrastructure of India is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Container India in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Container India has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Container India to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Railroads industry
– Container India is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Container India has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Container India staying ahead in the Railroads industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Container India in Railroads industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Container India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Container India are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Container India 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 Railroads industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Container India has high operating costs in the Railroads industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Container India lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Container India has some of the most successful models in the Railroads industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Container India should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Container India strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Container India 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Container India needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Railroads industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Container India is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Railroads industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Container India needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Railroads industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Container India can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Container India is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Container India is one of the leading players in the Railroads industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Railroads industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Container India is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Container India to provide better information regarding Railroads products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Container India 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Container India products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Container India needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Container India Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Container India are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Container India 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Container India can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Railroads industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Container India has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Railroads industry. This can help Container India to build a more holistic ecosystem for Container India products in the Railroads industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Railroads industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Container India can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Container India can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Container India can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Container India can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Container India operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Railroads sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Container India 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Container India is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Container India can utilize new technology in the field of Railroads industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Container India in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Railroads industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Container India has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Railroads sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Container India to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Container India to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Container India 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Container India can develop new processes and procedures in Railroads industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Container India can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Container India External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Container India are -
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. Container India 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.
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 Container India in the Railroads sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Container India has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Railroads industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Container India needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Railroads sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Container India 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 Container India prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Railroads industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Container India can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Container India may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Railroads sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Container India 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Container India needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Railroads industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Container India can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Railroads industry.
Increasing wage structure of Container India
– 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 Container India.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Container India in Railroads industry. The Railroads 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.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Container India needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Railroads industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Railroads industry are lowering. It can presents Container India with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Railroads sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Container India Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Container India 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 Container India 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 Container India 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 Container India 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 Container India needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
