Crowd Mobile (CM8) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Software & Programming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Crowd Mobile (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Crowd Mobile is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Crowd Mobile can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crowd Mobile, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Crowd Mobile
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crowd Mobile
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Software & Programming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Crowd Mobile
Strengths of Crowd Mobile | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crowd Mobile are -
Learning organization
- Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Crowd Mobile emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Crowd Mobile comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Software & Programming 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Crowd Mobile is one of the most innovative firm in Software & Programming sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Software & Programming industry
– Crowd Mobile has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Crowd Mobile to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Software & Programming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Crowd Mobile to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Crowd Mobile has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Crowd Mobile staying ahead in the Software & Programming industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Crowd Mobile is present in almost all the verticals within the Software & Programming industry. This has provided Crowd Mobile 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Crowd Mobile has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Software & Programming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Crowd Mobile have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Crowd Mobile in Software & Programming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Crowd Mobile 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Crowd Mobile is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Crowd Mobile has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Crowd Mobile to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Crowd Mobile has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Crowd Mobile 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 of Crowd Mobile | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Crowd Mobile are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Software & Programming industry, Crowd Mobile needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Crowd Mobile has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Software & Programming industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Crowd Mobile is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Software & Programming industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Crowd Mobile products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Crowd Mobile needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Crowd Mobile 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.
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 Crowd Mobile supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Crowd Mobile is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Crowd Mobile vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Crowd Mobile 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 Software & Programming industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Crowd Mobile is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Software & Programming industry, but Crowd Mobile needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Crowd Mobile to focus more on services in the Software & Programming industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crowd Mobile has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Software & Programming industry over the last five years. Crowd Mobile even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Crowd Mobile has some of the most successful models in the Software & Programming industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Crowd Mobile should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Software & Programming industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Crowd Mobile 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.
Crowd Mobile Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Crowd Mobile are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Software & Programming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Crowd Mobile in the Software & Programming industry. Now Crowd Mobile can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Crowd Mobile 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Crowd Mobile 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 Software & Programming industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Crowd Mobile can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Crowd Mobile in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Software & Programming industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Crowd Mobile has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Software & Programming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Crowd Mobile to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Crowd Mobile to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Crowd Mobile can develop new processes and procedures in Software & Programming 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, Crowd Mobile 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Software & Programming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Crowd Mobile 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. Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Crowd Mobile can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Software & Programming 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Crowd Mobile can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Crowd Mobile operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Software & Programming sector.
Threats Crowd Mobile External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Crowd Mobile are -
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 Crowd Mobile in the Software & Programming sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Crowd Mobile 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 Software & Programming industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Crowd Mobile
– 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 Crowd Mobile.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile prominent markets.
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.
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. Crowd Mobile needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Software & Programming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Software & Programming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Crowd Mobile can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Crowd Mobile is facing in Software & Programming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Crowd Mobile business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Crowd Mobile.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Crowd Mobile 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 Software & Programming industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Crowd Mobile may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Software & Programming sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crowd Mobile 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 Software & Programming industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Crowd Mobile Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile 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 Crowd Mobile needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.