Maisons du Monde (0RHL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Furniture & Fixtures
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maisons du Monde (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maisons du Monde is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maisons du Monde can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maisons du Monde, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maisons du Monde
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maisons du Monde
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Furniture & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maisons du Monde
Strengths of Maisons du Monde | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maisons du Monde are -
Analytics focus
– Maisons du Monde 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Maisons du Monde is one of the most innovative firm in Furniture & Fixtures sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Maisons du Monde 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.
Organizational Resilience of Maisons du Monde
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maisons du Monde does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Maisons du Monde has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Maisons du Monde 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Maisons du Monde 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Maisons du Monde has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Maisons du Monde staying ahead in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Maisons du Monde has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Ability to lead change in Furniture & Fixtures
– Maisons du Monde is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Maisons du Monde in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Maisons du Monde is present in almost all the verticals within the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This has provided Maisons du Monde 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Maisons du Monde comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Maisons du Monde has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Furniture & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Maisons du Monde have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Maisons du Monde | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maisons du Monde are -
Need for greater diversity
– Maisons du Monde 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Maisons du Monde 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, Maisons du Monde 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 dependence on Maisons du Monde ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Maisons du Monde still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Furniture & Fixtures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Maisons du Monde has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Maisons du Monde needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Furniture & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Maisons du Monde can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Maisons du Monde is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Maisons du Monde, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Furniture & Fixtures 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Maisons du Monde has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Furniture & Fixtures industry over the last five years. Maisons du Monde 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Maisons du Monde strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maisons du Monde 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Maisons du Monde 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Furniture & Fixtures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde has some of the most successful models in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Maisons du Monde should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Maisons du Monde Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maisons du Monde are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Maisons du Monde is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maisons du Monde can utilize new technology in the field of Furniture & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Furniture & Fixtures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Maisons du Monde 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. Maisons du Monde 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Maisons du Monde has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Furniture & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Maisons du Monde to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maisons du Monde to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Maisons du Monde 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Maisons du Monde to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Maisons du Monde in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Maisons du Monde to increase its market reach. Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Maisons du Monde 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Maisons du Monde 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Maisons du Monde can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Furniture & Fixtures 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, Maisons du Monde can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maisons du Monde operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Furniture & Fixtures sector.
Threats Maisons du Monde External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maisons du Monde are -
Environmental challenges
– Maisons du Monde 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. Maisons du Monde can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Maisons du Monde 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.
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 Maisons du Monde.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Furniture & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maisons du Monde 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, Maisons du Monde may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Furniture & Fixtures sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Maisons du Monde has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Maisons du Monde needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maisons du Monde is facing in Furniture & Fixtures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Maisons du Monde 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry regulations.
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. Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Maisons du Monde
– 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 Maisons du Monde.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maisons du Monde in Furniture & Fixtures industry. The Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maisons du Monde Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde 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 Maisons du Monde needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.