SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CBL Corporation Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CBL Corporation Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CBL Corporation Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CBL Corporation Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CBL Corporation Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CBL Corporation Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of CBL Corporation Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CBL Corporation Ltd
Strengths of CBL Corporation Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CBL Corporation Ltd are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of CBL Corporation Ltd in the sector have low bargaining power. CBL Corporation Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps CBL Corporation Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the CBL Corporation Ltd 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
– CBL Corporation Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CBL Corporation Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CBL Corporation Ltd staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– CBL Corporation Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Organizational Resilience of CBL Corporation Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CBL Corporation Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
High brand equity
– CBL Corporation Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled CBL Corporation Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For CBL Corporation Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– CBL Corporation Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CBL Corporation Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CBL Corporation Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of CBL Corporation Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– CBL Corporation Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of CBL Corporation Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CBL Corporation Ltd are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that CBL Corporation Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at CBL Corporation Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as CBL Corporation Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though CBL Corporation Ltd has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. CBL Corporation Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, CBL Corporation Ltd 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 industry.
Need for greater diversity
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of CBL Corporation Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, CBL Corporation Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on CBL Corporation Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CBL Corporation Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though CBL Corporation Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CBL Corporation Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CBL Corporation Ltd 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 Australia, CBL Corporation Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
CBL Corporation Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CBL Corporation Ltd are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– CBL Corporation Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled CBL Corporation Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CBL Corporation Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. CBL Corporation Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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
– CBL Corporation Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
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 CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– CBL Corporation Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, CBL Corporation Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. CBL Corporation Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help CBL Corporation Ltd to increase its market reach. CBL Corporation Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– CBL Corporation Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at CBL Corporation Ltd 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 industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CBL Corporation Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help CBL Corporation Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for CBL Corporation Ltd products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats CBL Corporation Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CBL Corporation Ltd are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, CBL Corporation Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents CBL Corporation Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that CBL Corporation Ltd is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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. CBL Corporation Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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 industry.
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 dependence on third party suppliers
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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
– CBL Corporation Ltd 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 industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. CBL Corporation Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 CBL Corporation Ltd in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CBL Corporation Ltd in industry. The 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.
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. CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd
– 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 CBL Corporation Ltd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CBL Corporation Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd 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 CBL Corporation Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.