Griffin (GFM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Griffin (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Griffin is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Griffin can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Griffin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Griffin 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 Griffin can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Griffin
2. Improving business portfolio management of Griffin
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Griffin
Strengths of Griffin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Griffin are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Griffin 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.
High brand equity
– Griffin has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Griffin to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Griffin has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Griffin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Griffin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Griffin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Griffin 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.
Organizational Resilience of Griffin
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Griffin does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Griffin is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Griffin is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Griffin in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Griffin has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Griffin has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Griffin have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Griffin 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Griffin is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Griffin 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Griffin in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Griffin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Griffin are -
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Griffin 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Griffin needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Griffin is just above the Gold & Silver industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Griffin 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Griffin, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Griffin 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 Gold & Silver industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Griffin needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Griffin can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Griffin is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Griffin supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Griffin is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Griffin vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Griffin 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Griffin is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Griffin needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Griffin to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Griffin products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Griffin needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Griffin Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Griffin are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Griffin can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Griffin has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Griffin to build a more holistic ecosystem for Griffin products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Griffin can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Griffin 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, Griffin is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Griffin can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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. Griffin can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Griffin to increase its market reach. Griffin 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.
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 Griffin 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 Griffin in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Griffin can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Griffin 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Griffin has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Griffin to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Griffin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Griffin 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.
Threats Griffin External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Griffin are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Griffin 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Griffin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Griffin has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Griffin needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
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. Griffin 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.
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 Griffin.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Griffin 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Griffin 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Griffin with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver 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 Griffin business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Griffin 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 Griffin prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Griffin 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, Griffin may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Griffin Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Griffin 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 Griffin 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 Griffin 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 Griffin 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 Griffin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.