Great Eastern Shipping (GESC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great Eastern Shipping (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great Eastern Shipping is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Great Eastern Shipping
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Great Eastern Shipping can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great Eastern Shipping, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great Eastern Shipping 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 Great Eastern Shipping can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great Eastern Shipping
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great Eastern Shipping
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Great Eastern Shipping
Strengths of Great Eastern Shipping | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great Eastern Shipping are -
Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Great Eastern Shipping digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Training and development
– Great Eastern Shipping has one of the best training and development program in Transportation industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Great Eastern Shipping in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Great Eastern Shipping is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Great Eastern Shipping has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Great Eastern Shipping to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Great Eastern Shipping to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Great Eastern Shipping has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Great Eastern Shipping is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Great Eastern Shipping in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Great Eastern Shipping is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Great Eastern Shipping 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 Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Great Eastern Shipping is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Great Eastern Shipping comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Organizational Resilience of Great Eastern Shipping
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Great Eastern Shipping does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Great Eastern Shipping | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great Eastern Shipping are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Great Eastern Shipping, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation industry. 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Great Eastern Shipping is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Transportation industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Great Eastern Shipping has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Great Eastern Shipping has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Great Eastern Shipping should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Great Eastern Shipping ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Great Eastern Shipping still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Great Eastern Shipping has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Great Eastern Shipping is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but Great Eastern Shipping needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Great Eastern Shipping to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Great Eastern Shipping supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Great Eastern Shipping is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Great Eastern Shipping vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Great Eastern Shipping 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 Water Transportation industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Great Eastern Shipping 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
– From the outside it seems that Great Eastern Shipping needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Great Eastern Shipping can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Great Eastern Shipping is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Great Eastern Shipping has high operating costs in the Water Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Great Eastern Shipping lucrative customers.
Great Eastern Shipping Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great Eastern Shipping are -
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. Great Eastern Shipping can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Great Eastern Shipping 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 Water Transportation industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Great Eastern Shipping has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Great Eastern Shipping to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Great Eastern Shipping to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Great Eastern Shipping has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Transportation industry. This can help Great Eastern Shipping to build a more holistic ecosystem for Great Eastern Shipping products in the Water Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Great Eastern Shipping can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Great Eastern Shipping to increase its market reach. Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Great Eastern Shipping 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. Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Great Eastern Shipping in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Great Eastern Shipping can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Great Eastern Shipping can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Great Eastern Shipping External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great Eastern Shipping are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Great Eastern Shipping has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Great Eastern Shipping needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Great Eastern Shipping 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, Great Eastern Shipping may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
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 Great Eastern Shipping.
Regulatory challenges
– Great Eastern Shipping 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
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. Great Eastern Shipping needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Great Eastern Shipping is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Great Eastern Shipping needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Great Eastern Shipping can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Great Eastern Shipping with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Great Eastern Shipping business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Great Eastern Shipping 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.
Increasing wage structure of Great Eastern Shipping
– 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 Great Eastern Shipping.
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 Great Eastern Shipping in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Great Eastern Shipping Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great Eastern Shipping 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 Great Eastern Shipping 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 Great Eastern Shipping 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 Great Eastern Shipping 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 Great Eastern Shipping needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.